Pubdate: Sat, 21 Jun 2014
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 The Windsor Star
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Brian Cross
Page: A1

MOST YOUNG, SEVERELY HURT CRASH VICTIMS HIGH ON POT

Statistics 'huge eye-opener'

Every young person severely hurt in car accidents two years ago and
almost every young person severely hurt last year were high on pot,
the manager of the region's trauma program reported Friday.

"It's outrageous," Diane Bradford said of this "very alarming spike"
in marijuana use for people aged 16 to 24 who suffered major
multi-system critical injuries (and usually end up in intensive care)
from motor vehicle collisions. The results are based on drug tox
screens for 11 different drugs conducted on all the trauma patients at
Windsor Regional Hospital's Level II trauma centre.

While alcohol is still very much a problem - 62 per cent of those
severely injured young people last year were drunk - the message on
using a designated driver when drinking has largely gotten through to
teens.

Though some still drink and drive, it's not considered socially
acceptable, Bradford said. But they don't get that smoking pot also
dangerously impairs driving ability.

"They don't think it's the same thing as being drunk," she
said.

"That's a huge concern and a culture shift in our community," she
said, adding young people often combine pot with alcohol.

For all young people hurt in trauma incidents, the presence of
marijuana went from 21 per cent in 2011-12, to 55 per cent in 2012-13,
to 46 per cent in 201314.

The stats, said Bradford, are a huge eye-opener.

"I'm a mother of four children, and it's real, it's real for this
community," she said. "Drugs are mainstream." However, the stats also
show a decline in the overall number of young people being severely
injured, from 29 in 2011-12, to 29 in 2112-13, to just 13 last year.

The drop is something to celebrate, said Bradford, who coordinates a
program at the hospital's Ouellette campus aimed at Preventing Alcohol
and Risk related Trauma in Youth. Bradford was speaking at an event to
mark PARTY's 20th anniversary when she talked about the rising drug
use and need to inform teens smoking pot and driving is just as
dangerous as drinking and driving.

"That's why this program is so important," she said. "We get that
message across by bringing students to the trauma centre, with the
sights and sounds and smells of the trauma centre, and make the
consequences real."

Since starting in 1994, 4,134 high school students have gone through
the program, run on a volunteer basis by hospital staff, paramedics,
police and accident victims and their parents, who hammer home the
devastating results when teens cross the "stupid line."

The day that PARTY releases its available dates, they're snapped up by
area high schools whose teachers have seen the sobering effect on
students, who often arrive at the hospital acting cocky, enjoying the
fact they have a day off school. Then they're immersed - taking part
in a mock trauma case - in what happens when a young person critically
injured in an drunk-driving crash is brought into the emergency
department and medical staff scramble to save his life. The drama
usually includes devastated parents, a trip to the ICU, an encounter
with a real patient whose life was destroyed by risky behaviour,
discussion of organ donation and the entry of an officer who arrests
the youth who was driving.

"We are all changed by the end of the day, in a positive way, to
prevent them from crossing that stupid line," said Brennan high school
vice-principal Laura Beltran, who said she's lost three students
during her teaching career - one who died in a drinking-and-driving
collision and two who died from drug use.

Retired OPP officer Kevin Armstrong said he's been a volunteer for
more than 18 years because, as an accident reconstructionist, he was
tired of sitting down and explaining to distraught parents why their
child was dead. PARTY has an effect on students, he said, recalling
how he once met a young man up in Grand Bend who recognized him from
PARTY. "He's got five friends who were just trashed, and he's stone
cold sober taking care of these guys," as the designated driver.

"If we can affect two, three 20, 200 (students), that's 200 less that
the hospital has to deal with, it's 200 fewer tragedies," he said.
"And that's the whole driving force."

Leamington's Karen Henze-Whittle, whose son Jason Antonio, 35, remains
semi-aware with very limited mobility 16 years after he was a
passenger in a alcohol-related crash near Point Pelee, said young
people many times are given the opportunity to make a decision that
could change the rest of their life. "And unfortunately our son is an
example of that."

He is the subject of a video that's part of the PARTY program, showing
him having fun on a Jet Ski before his accident, and then switching to
him as he is today, being hoisted from his wheelchair. "It takes the
air right out of the room when kids see him," his mother said,
"because they never think it will happen to them."
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MAP posted-by: Matt