Photos: Students Get Drunk-Driving Lesson

Editor's note: The accident depicted in the photos was a dramatization. Nobody was injured.

Ryan Kent knew it wasn't real. The blood was fake. His friends didn't die. But Kent couldn't escape the emotion.

"It's hard," he said. "I'm getting goosebumps."

Kent was watching "Every 15 Minutes" at Hopatcong High School on Thursday. Board of Education member Sue Madar, who spent two years organizing the program, said she hoped the program would promote drunk-driving awareness.

"If it stops just one or two kids from getting into a car drunk," Madar said, "then it was worth it."

On Friday, it seemed like the program had the desired affect.

Students wiped tears from their eyes and passed tissue boxes throughout a filled auditorium. Students spoke about loving their parents; parents spoke about what their children meant to them.

"I never saw so much Kleenex in my life," said Nancy Pruden, mother of student Chelsea Pruden.

On Thursday, juniors and seniors watched classmates dramatize a drunk-driving crash, complete with fake blood, destroyed vehicles from a local junkyard, police, firefighters, ambulance squad members, a helicopter and a Hearst.

On Friday, the teens also watched a video of the events surrounding the crash, from an alcohol-soaked party to the arrest and sentencing of a drunk driver.

"Every 15 Minutes" claims a person is killed in America in an alcohol-related accident every 15 minutes. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Authority said in 2009 someone was killed on average every 50 minutes in an alcohol-impaired driving crash.