MIDWEST CITY — A Midwest City police officer is being honored for educating students about the dangers of impaired driving.
Sgt. Terry Tilley was named the winner of the 2014 Innovation in the Classroom Award. The award is presented by the National Association of School Resource Officers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Foundation.
Tilley will be recognized for his innovative teaching about road safety in schools by a school resource officer. The award will be presented Tuesday in Palm Springs, California.
Tilley, who has worked with Midwest City high school students for 15 years, started the program 12 years ago to raise awareness about the deadly effects of drunk driving.
The daily program takes place every April, at the time of prom and graduation. In it, students witness the consequences of drunk and distracted driving, from start to finish, through a simulated car accident.
Students are brought to an assembly to hear stories from people who have experienced the effects of impaired driving. The students then go outside to see a simulated car wreck, with a driver and an injured passenger trapped in the car.
Midwest City firefighters are seen using the Jaws of Life to open the wrecked car to remove the driver and passenger, with one being transported by ambulance while the other is loaded into a helicopter to be rushed to a hospital.
From the scene of the wreck, the students return to the auditorium to watch a mock funeral for a person killed in a car accident.
Seeing the results
For those involved, whether as witnesses or volunteers, “it's just an eye opener for them. it has a huge impact,” Tilley said.
“The students who are participating as my victims get up on stage and say how they felt all day,” she said.
“They had no idea, that they were in a car when the fire department was cutting the roof off, you know, stuff like that, you just can't see it like that when you tell somebody.”
Throughout his career, Tilley has seen the effects of impaired and distracted driving.
“I was a paramedic for the Mid-Del City Ambulance Service before I became a police officer, and back in the day, always around dance time, we were pretty much guaranteed to die,” he said. “Not only as a paramedic, but as a police officer responding to accidents, you can see what vehicles can do to someone — and it only takes a split second.”
Sharing the credit
Although he's the one who traveled to Palm Springs to accept the award, Tilley said he'd like to focus the recognition elsewhere.
“I, by all means, am not going to accept this award for myself, I'm going to accept this award on behalf of my police department that allowed me to do it — they let me do it, the Mid-Del schools let me do it from the beginning, and then, most importantly, to the volunteers, everyone who volunteers to help me do this,” he said..
“If it's just one person that we touch in that audience, that we reach, you know they can go to college and go to a soiree or a party, and if it's just one kid that you save, then it was worth it,” she said .
