BLACKSTONE, Va. -- Students at Kenston Forest School in Blackstone are seeing the impact the choices they make when they get behind the wheel of a vehicle can have on them and their loved ones firsthand.
The school held a drunk driving response simulation during Distracted Driving Awareness Month.
“We pray this is never anybody’s story in attendance," explained one Nottoway County first responder. "But what I can promise you in reality is that it is somebody’s story multiple times a day."
This rural community, which has a volunteer fire and rescue squad, saw 296 crashes in 2023, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Three of those were deadly, and 15 of those drivers were under the influence of alcohol.
"In this scenario, there is a drunk driver who has hit an innocent bystander going down the road," said the same first responder.
From the medical response to the hospital helicopter landing right on school grounds, the hope is that if these young people see it, they can prevent it.
"The decisions and choices you make daily matter, and they have consequences."
"I don't want any of my friends to ever go through that," said senior Libbie Calhoun.
But if seeing it wasn’t enough, how about hearing it from a first-grade teacher and her husband who've lived it?
“I just felt this huge impact, and I was like, what was that?" shared first-grade teacher Tracy Bugg.
She was riding with her husband, Glenn, and their two daughters, Briana and Megan, to an East Carolina football game on Labor Day weekend in 2017 when they were hit by a drunk driver.
"She was laying on top of her sister, and then her sister said, 'Mama, she's not breathing,'" Bugg said.
Seventeen-year-old Briana, who had just started her senior year at Park View High School in South Hill, was revived by first responders on the roadway but declared brain dead on life support at a nearby hospital.
"We had to make a decision to take her off, and we did because she wouldn't have been the Briana we knew," cried Bugg.
While Glenn survived the crash, he still struggles with his injuries eight years later.
“I don't know how far, how close I was to being gone, but they had given me two units of blood before they could do surgery," he shared.
Saying goodbye to their baby girl is a pain the Buggs want no other family to experience.
"She was a joyful child," smiled Tracy. "She loved to laugh, loved to have a good time, was very athletic. One decision can irrevocably change someone's life.”
The Buggs have made it their mission to share their story with young people across the region.
"She would be proud, I think," said Tracy.
But they have a message for every driver, young and old.
"I know that we're in a rural area, so we don't have Uber like others do, but you need to designate, and if you don't designate, you need to stay where you are or call somebody to get you," Tracy noted.
Briana’s memory lives on inside her mom's first-grade classroom and in everyone who hears this message and decides not to drive impaired.
"I think a lot of people may have been joking around about it, but I think now it's more serious, and I think more people are willing to say, 'Hey, I need a ride home,'" said senior Reid Thomas. "And I think that's very important.”
"She's in a better place," said Tracy. "How she got there is not right, but she's okay. She's okay."
Statewide in 2023, nearly 7,000 crashes were caused by alcohol, and more than 21,000 involved distracted drivers.
Brianna would have turned 25 years old on May 9.
The driver who killed her was convicted of second-degree murder and is spending 17 years behind bars.
The Buggs hope this shows everyone how one lapse of judgment can end or ruin your life.
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