MASSENA – If you happen to see a vehicle wreck in the parking lot at Massena Central High School Wednesday morning, don’t call an ambulance. The rescue squad will already be there.

Massena Central High School, Massena Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue Squad, Massena Police Department, and St. Lawrence County STOP-DWI Program will be sponsoring a mock DWI crash Thursday, May 17 (with a rain date of May 18) at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot in front of the school.

The mock DWI crash will dramatize the severe consequences of drinking and driving and promotes a “safe and sober message” for students, which is particularly poignant during prom and graduation events.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were 10,839 alcohol-related fatalities, involving a driver with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or higher in 2009, which amounts to nearly a third of the total traffic fatalities for that year. This represents an average of one alcohol-related fatality every 48 minutes.

In St. Lawrence County in 2011, roughly 10 percent of all arrests for driving while intoxicated and driving while ability impaired were of people between the ages of 16 and 20. Nationally, the leading cause of deaths for youths ages 15 to 20 is motor vehicle crashes.

The objective of this program is to illustrate the possible consequences when people choose to drink and then to drive. The simulation highlights the fire, rescue and emergency medical system at work as well as police performing field sobriety testing and arrest procedures.