(Spirit Lake)– Authorities are hoping a special presentation Tuesday at Spirit Lake High School resonates with young drivers. Kevin Krull of the Iowa State Patrol tells KUOO news the “Forever 17” program is based on a high speed single vehicle crash in 2022 in Dubuque county, Iowa, that claimed the lives of three teens…
“So what it boils down to is this 18-year-old male driver of a Camaro had two female passengers with him, both 17-years-old, and they were out over in Dubuque county over by Dubuque. They were running on Highway 20 at speed up to around 150 mph, and then end up going off the roadway at 146. When they vaulted over a road, they impacted the other side at 104 mph and that’s when they stopped. Very impactful to see the car. They’ve got it staged with the shoes in there still to symbolize that yeah, these three teens lost their lives because of some decisions made, and there’s no reason to be going that fast.”
Krull says parents of the three teens will also be on hand to give a presentation to the students. Krull says the program has been put on at schools in other parts of the state, but Spirit Lake is the first one in northwest Iowa to host it…
“Spirit Lake says we want to have this as a visual impact and have the parents come in and talk to the students and answer questions and give their real life experiences from this so that they can understand. The theory behind it is to make sure people understand the decisions they make can have life long consequences for other people, not jus themselves, and, unfortunately, life ending consequences.”
Krull says they’re hopeful the message resonates…
“We’ve got to understand just how impactful this can be and get that out there and get this message out to people so they don’t have to have somebody else repeat this, and that’s what the hopes of the parents are, is to make sure that the young people today don’t make the same mistakes.”
Krull says he plans to have the wrecked vehicle on display in front of the Sami Center Tuesday morning, prior to the start of school.
