B.J. Hannon, staff nurse, offers a few words of advice to high school students: “If you don’t think this happens in your school, you’re wrong,” she says while sitting in front of a projector screen with a stomach-turning photograph of a man involved in an automobile crash.

“This” is drunken driving, and Hannon, an emergency room nurse who has spoken at more than 23 high schools on the topic, knows all too much about it. She sees the fatal repercussions first-hand.

Hannon is one of ten staff nurses at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics who participate in the national Emer-gency Nurses Cancel Alcohol-Related Emergencies (ENCare) program. All ten nurses volunteer their time to speak at high schools across eastern Iowa, warning students about the risks of drinking and driving.

This is no lecture. A slide show and video of some disturbing, yet very real, consequences of drunken driving do most of the talking.

Diane Lamb, R.N., ENCare’s coordinator at UI Hospitals and Clinics since 1998, said, “We tell students that we don’t want to see them in our emergency room. We stress that they control what happens to them and trauma is preventable.”

Student responses are gauged by confidential evaluations given after the presentation. The evaluation asks students about the presentation and about their previous drug and alcohol use. School officials receive a summary of the data.

ENCare makes many of its visits to schools just before homecoming and prom season. Though student responses vary, Lamb says many students react positively.

“Some kids actually say they’ll change their plans for prom night,” she says. “Some say it will change the way they think about drinking.”

Regardless of a student’s response, the ENCare team focuses on one ultimate goal—seeing as few teens as possible come through the doors of the Emergency Treatment Center with drunken driving-related injuries.

“If one kid decides not to drink and drive, it’s worth every second of our time.”

—B.J. Hannon, R.N.