FORT KENT, Maine – Several town organizations came together at Fort Kent Community High School on Thursday morning to recreate an OUI-related crash in an effort to raise awareness of these incidents while also testing emergency response capabilities.
The scenario involved a drunk teenager driving a minivan with three other passengers and running into a vehicle with a single driver in an accident that also results in a pedestrian being struck and killed. Police perform a field sobriety test and the driver is arrested. The fire department helps extricate passengers, and the ambulance transports injured teens away.
The exercise was a collaboration between the town’s fire and police departments, Ambulance Service, Inc., Northern Maine Medical Center, and Fort Kent Community High School. Border Patrol and Aroostook County Emergency Management were also on the scene.
Over 100 students stood outside the school’s parking lot where traffic cones set the boundary of a scene with a minivan crashed into a sideways car. In a matter of minutes, the parking lot was swarming with emergency vehicles and personnel as they conducted sobriety tests, extricated teens splashed with fake blood from the crashed vehicles and transported them via stretchers into the ambulance.
OUI incidents in Maine shot up by about 10 percent between 2019 and 2021, with a total of 1,400 reported OUIs, according to the Maine Department of Transportation. Incidents dropped to 1,335 in 2022, and then 1,311 last year, but they have not yet dropped below where they were in 2019.
From 2013 to 2023, Aroostook County saw an average of 45 OUI incidents per year, with a high of 54 recorded in 2014 and a low of 35 recorded in 2021, according to MaineDOT’s online public crash query tool. This data shows that Fort Kent saw an average of 3 crashes a year within the same time frame, with a high of five reported in 2013 and 2022, and a low of zero reported in both 2014 and 2016.
Fort Kent Police Chief Michael DeLena said OUI incidents have been fairly consistent throughout the area.
“It’s always been an issue,” he said. “It’s always been a revolving door for us, as far as responding to incidents like this.”
He said it is important to show students what could occur during and after an OUI crash, as juveniles and young adults may think it is okay to drive after drinking for the first time at a party or at a friend’s house.
Aroostook County Emergency Management Agency Director Darren Woods said it was a good opportunity for first responders to train and practice with each other.
“Community drills like the one Fort Kent just did benefits first responders and the students get an idea of what could happen if they drive drunk or do something foolish,” he said.
NMMC Marketing and Communications Director Nichole Jandreau said these drills help the hospital assess and evaluate best practices and to maintain a high level of patient safety and care.
Emergency Department Nurse Manager Kristine Thibodeau said the drill helps them make sure their processes work and it also helps them evaluate what they can improve on in the future.
“We want to be sure we are ready for anything that comes through the door,” Thibodeau said.
Officer Caleb Jandreau said the drill involved adapting to unplanned situations.
“There were a lot of changing things on the fly,” Jandreau said. “It was kind of like acting for us a little bit, but the realness of the situation was portrayed. I’m pretty happy with the way things went.”
Donald Chouinard, Dean of Students for both Fort Kent Community High School and Valley Rivers Middle School, said that local emergency services reached out to the school about the event. Chouinard said the school felt it was a good opportunity to teach kids about drunk driving.
He said they are two months into the new school year and this is the second experience they’ve had so far with educating students about the dangers of driving intoxicated.
“We try to enforce that message throughout the year, and really hit it hard as senior week rolls around,” Chouinard said, “just to reinforce the idea of safe driving and to avoid drinking and driving.”
