The Forsyth County School System (along with emergency response agencies) reiterated the potential consequences of drunk driving on Saturday, March 18 at Lanier Technical College in an effort to educate teens about the effects of poor choices through a reenactment.

In an annual event called Ghost Out, Forsyth high school students participated in a dramatic portrayal of a crash scene on prom night when the car of intoxicated teenagers slams into an innocent family of three travelling on the road. Real emergency responders teamed up with the students to go through the steps of handling an actual crash scene and the potentially fatal consequences of reckless driving. After the simulation, students participated in an event called Teen Maze that leads them through scenarios that can result from the choices  they make, whether that’s a positive choice or a negative choice.

Ghost Out is held each year and seeks to instill a “scare-factor” into convincing teenagers to be thoughtful about their actions. Prom is the peak season for underage drinking/impaired driving incidents, and Forsyth’s goal in putting on Ghost Out is to prevent the tragedy of lives lost to poor decisions.

Raider freshman Judah Caraway attended the event. “There’s a lot to be said about the importance of setting goals and sticking to them,” he said. “I know personally that if I want to reach my goals, I’ll need to make good choices.”

Ghost Out serves as an important opportunity to highlight the harmful impacts that reckless decisions make on a society. It brings broad issues to a local scale that is all too familiar to Forsyth County and, hopefully, will convince students to be smart about their actions.