'Every 48 Minutes': See the Movie East High Students Made

On May 16, two days before prom, all of Wauwatosa East High School gathered outside to watch a staged fatal car crash involving their own classmates.

Many such mock crashes have been staged before at schools across the nation. But this one was different – and while those who put it on hope that what students saw that morning would stay with them if they ever thought about drinking and driving – this presentation was broader and more lasting.

The East High student body was watching only a portion of a much larger event. They were seeing just the critical part of a story that would be permanently recorded on film. A fictional story, to be sure, but one that is acted in reality from day to tragic day when young people drink and drive.

The movie produced at East High around that day can serve to inform students in Wauwatosa and anywhere else from now on.

The actors were East students, their parents, Wauwatosa police officers, Tosa firefighters, Flight for Life emergency responders. Filmakers were Milwaukee Public Television professionals and Milwaukee Area Technical College students.

Patch hopes that all readers, but especially parents and students of Wauwatosa Public Schools, will take the time to watch and to enjoy the talents of the members of their community but more important to take home the message of "Every 48 Minutes" – the brief period between fatal, alcohol-related crashes in the United States every day.