BY JEM ANSHAW
The annual Upper Hunter Liquor Accord high school visit is a unique opportunity offered to local students.
Last week year 11 students came together to hear from a range of speakers including Fire and Rescue, Police, Westpac Rescue Helicopter and St Heliers Correction Centre about how their driving decisions can have grave consequences.
“Fire and Rescue New South Wales offer a rescue ed service, however this is definitely a step above that,” Sebastian Jacobs, station officer for Muswellbrook Fire and Rescue said.
“Normally we just arrive and we do a PowerPoint presentation where we just say speeding kills, which is well known, but it doesn’t really penetrate, here we’ve got students who’ve put fake blood on themselves, one appeared deceased, we’ve got someone through a windscreen, it’s much more compelling than a PowerPoint.”
While educating the students on the consequences of their actions is the main focus of the program, there is also another side to it that is equally as important for the emergency services personnel.
“The language we use today is deliberately casual and it’s designed so that when the students see us in our uniforms, they don’t feel threatened at all, same with the police,” Sebastian shared.
The Upper Hunter Liquor Accord sponsors the event for year 11 students from Merriwa Central School, St Joseph’s Catholic Collage Aberdeen, Scone Grammar School, Scone High School and Muswellbrook High School.
“It humanizes us, we’re not just uniforms we’re people. I touched on the fact that we don’t want to see these kids in these scenarios because it does stay with us, we want them to understand that.”
