As seniors start gearing up for the typical fun rites of passage such as prom and graduation, the Sedona Fire District and the Sedona-Oak Creek School ramped up messaging to celebrate in a responsible manner by bringing back the Every 15 Minutes program to Sedona Red Rock High School on Thursday and Friday, April, 10 and 11.

“There’s a web of social interaction in a small community like Sedona,” SFD Battalion Chief Jeff Wassell said. “And that can suddenly end when you lose a life. If we can prevent that from taking place during this critical time of year where Sedona is a week out from prom soon after that graduation. We want to drive that point home to the students and maybe from seeing this, they can stop a family member or a friend from making that decision to drink and drive.”

This is a return of a program in which SFD previously participated from 2005 to 2019 — which was paused after the COVID-19 pandemic — that walks students through the process of what happens when an intoxicated driver gets behind the wheel, and the legal and emotional fallout to families when a fatality occurs in a DUI crash.

Mock Accident

SFD and Sedona police officers responded to a two-car collision “caused” by senior Nic McAtee, who was fictitiously driving under the influence, with Phoebe Swaninger and Jaden Kuhn as passengers.

Swaninger was pronounced “dead” at the scene, while Kuhn was airlifted by Guardian Air and later pronounced “dead” at Verde Valley Medical Center at 11:44 a.m. by Dr. Scott Lotz in a recorded segment shown to students the following day. The scene involved Kuhn’s mother Amber arriving at the emergency room for extra dramatic effect.

“In these types of cases, it doesn’t matter if you’re a good student or a bad student,” Swaninger said. “It just matters what decisions you make in the present. In the story we’re telling, [McAtee’s] a straight-A student. He’s never done anything wrong in his life, but he made a bad decision, and he has lasting consequences for that.”

“We’re looking for the school to identify students that have meaning to the rest of the students,” Wassell said of the participant selection process.

DUI Trial

“What I’ve learned from this is the impact of how one big mistake could change someone’s life,” McAtee said while wearing an orange Yavapai County Detention Center jumpsuit before his mock trial before Judge David Gordon.

On Friday, juniors and seniors were assembled at the Sedona Performing Arts Center for the mock trial, during which Mike Walsh acted as the prosecutor and Jay Dosad represented McAtee. The trial was followed by a mock funeral led by Pastor Jeremy Peters, which also featured the deceased’s parents giving eulogies and the deceased narrating videos of their lives that were cut short.

“It’s a little scary, to be thinking that this could happen in a second,” Kuhn said while standing next to her own coffin.

Although the mock accident was staged the tears shed by attendees were real.

“We’re purposely left in the dark on what role are kids play in Every 15 Minutes, so when whatever it is is revealed to her mom and I — we can potentially have a more authentic response,” said Sedona-Oak Creek School District Superintendent Tom Swaninger, Ph.D., Phoebe’s father, prior to the mock funeral.

The name of the program was derived from drunk driving statistics in the 1990s, which showed that one person died in an alcohol-related crash every 15 minutes, however the statistics have improved and currently

“32 people in the United States are killed every day in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver — this is one death every 45 minutes,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states, citing data from 2020. “In 2023, 12,429 people died in alcohol-impaired driving traffic deaths,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

A systematic review by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of youth programs such as Every 15 Minutes.

“Most of these programs have not been evaluated,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website states. “The few existing studies suggest these types of programs may produce changes in knowledge or attitudes but have little or no effect on behaviors.”

Superintendent Swaninger provided an anecdotal response about the program’s effectiveness.

“I’m unfamiliar with that research,” Swaninger said. “From talking with community members who have been a part of such an event, that at least what they have shared with me is that it has been deeply impactful.”

Wassell said that seeing the effects of DUI fatalities has stayed with him over his career citing the Nov. 21, 2003 fatality of 15- year-old SRRHS student Chantal Echterling, who died at the scene in a single-vehicle wreck at a crash at Boynton Canyon Road and Dry Creek Road. Wassell told the students that he was on that call. A 19-year-old and two 16-year-olds, one of whom was driving, were transported to hospitals via helicopter or ground ambulance with serious injuries.

“You don’t think it happen here,” Wassell said to the students. “I was on that call and it does affect you; it affects the people around you, it affects the first responders that respond to it.”