The distractions of driving have become a concern to many people across Vermont. A senior from Blue Mountain Union High in Wells River is now doing his part to prevent the problem from continuing.

Vermont Assistant Medical Examiner John Walker said "We've had a lot of fatalities just in this area here, from lack of wearing seat belts; um we've had a lot in the last several weeks."

Jamie Eastman, the senior coordinating this project said his reasoning behind this is because of event that hit home last year, "There was a recent collision that involved the whole blue mountain community, last year. And I could definitely see out of some people that it was having come backs, flash backs from them."

Flashbacks that were brought back to reality in a mock car crash. The scenario was texting while driving that involved the death of a twelve year old.

Jamie said he had personnel from all over the state showed up to perform the mock crash, "I had Woodsville ambulance, which is our primary care ambulance. Woodsville rescue cut the cars apart. Wells river fire department, Newbury EMS, Vermont state police, orange county sheriffs, and the Vermont medical examiners office. And then I had Rickers funeral home take care of the mock deceased body."

According to the Vermont State Police, out of the 42 distracted driving accidents last year three of them were fatal. If you roll back the clock to 2007, Those 42 accidents drop down to only 12.

Trooper Chuck Schulze of The Vermont State Police said "It is a concern, with you know people texting while driving or even using cell phones while driving, so it's just anything to distract people, they're trying to get away from that."

Eastman coordinated the event to prevent Blue Mountain Union students from becoming one of those numbers.

Trooper Schulze hopes that due to this mock crash, the numbers will decrease, "Even if a couple of them say you know, a couple of them said well you know, I do that, and maybe you know I won't do that anymore, I'll just wait, you know that will go a long ways, but hopefully, you know you can at least convince a couple, maybe not to, not to do it."

Overall Jamie thought the scenario was a success, "It worked out great, I laid it out as pretty well as I wanted it to go, and it happened and it worked really great. I had the effect I wanted and um action, situation, the training element for the fire and EMS as well, it worked perfectly an um I believe the community and the crews will benefit from today's experience."

There was one very proud supporter of the project, Jamie's mother, Lisa Eastman "I'm very proud of Jamie, you know he put a lot of work into this project, and to make the kids think, about texting and driving, it's very important to get the message through to these kids. Cause they have no idea."