One of the worst human afflictions is the "It'll never happen to me" syndrome.
Maybe this condition is behind the Statistics Canada reported 121 deaths from impaired driving in 2011.
That number is the lowest it's been in 25 years but still, 121 people died needlessly.
And Saskatchewan has the worst impaired driving record in all of the provinces, at 683 incidents per 100,000 people in the province.
It's more than double the national rate and it's a critical problem that the P.A.R.T.Y. (Prevent Alcohol and Risk-Related Trauma in Youth) Program, put on by Safe Communities Humboldt and Area, is addressing.
Started by an emergency room nurse in 1986, the program has been implemented by communities nationwide to educate youths on injury prevention.
Humboldt Collegiate Institute has been putting on the program for its tenth graders these past few years, as well as students from neighboring areas such as Muenster, Annaheim, Watson and Lake Lenore.
The program seeks to not just tell kids what the consequences are of their decisions-but show them.
With help from the local RCMP, Humboldt and District Ambulance Services (HDAS), the Humboldt Fire Department and the Humboldt District Hospital, all worked in conjunction May 23 and 30 to present to kids the shocking, and many times gruesome, reality of what a silly decision can entail.
"It's not just a cheap thrill, it's real. This is really what happens. We see it far too often," said Renee Mackenzie, a registered nurse with the emergency department of Humboldt District Hospital, referring to the simulated fatal car accident that kicks off the program in the morning.
Students are invited into the Elgar Petersen Arena, where Humboldt's own emergency services personnel have set up a fatal automobile accident.
With two crumpled cars, fake blood splattered on the cracked windshields and volunteers playing the scattered victims, complete with fake open wounds and abrasions, the scene is far too real.
But it's necessary to be shocking.
As David Mortensen, a seasoned paramedic with HDAS, took the microphone and narrated the scene of the crime, ambulances and fire trucks with screeching sirens pulled up to the scene, all personnel scrambling around the accident.
Jaws of Life were being used, stretchers unloaded, body bags laid out to remove the deceased driver, firefighters barking orders and sawing open the hood of the car, while paramedics meticulously examined the remaining victims.
It was a morbid cacophony of noise and emotions.
The students sat in the stands, some visibly wiping away tears, others dumbfounded and pale-faced.
This could be them one day.
But do they know that?
Later that morning, the students assembled into another room for the program's introduction.
Mortensen explained to the kids the need for this type of education, while grisly scenes of auto accidents flashed behind him on the overhead.
One photo showed a woman, not wearing her seat belt, who was launched into her deployed airbag during a crash. Her face was bloodied and bruised, hardly discernible through the wounds.
Some kids looked down at their feet, feeling queasy. Others snickered and rolled their eyes.
It was clear to Mortensen that some just weren't getting it, victims of the "It'll never happen to me" syndrome.
He asked all the students to stand up, telling them it's time to address their "stupid line".
The stupid line, Mortensen explained, is the line someone would cross that could lead to tragic consequences.
Giving out hypothetical scenarios, Mortensen instructed the youths to sit down to the circumstance they felt applied to them.
Mortensen told the students to sit down if they'd ever drive after drinking.
A few sat down.
Mortensen told the students to sit down if they'd ever take a drink from a stranger.
Half of the group sat down.
Mortensen told the students to sit down if they'd ever get in the car with a friend who had been drinking.
That took care of the rest.
"The stupid line really caught my attention," said Dalyn Smith, a tenth grader at Lake Lenore School, when asked if kids were actually absorbing the lessons.
"I didn't learn really anything new this year, necessarily, but the stupid line always stands out to me," Smith added.
An entire day of the program consists of lessons depicting real-life scenarios in the emergency room and the therapy and addictions wing of hospitals, before touring the local funeral homes for a feeling of where their bad decisions may lead them.
The RCMP's session depicts graphic scenes that could have easily been prevented with smarter decisions.
"We've had a couple of kids pass out before," said Rhonda Mortensen, an intermediate care paramedic with HDAS.
Some may wonder if it's really necessary for the program to be shocking in their presentations.
"We have to get through to them. If we make an impact on even one person, the day was a success," Rhonda Mortensen said.
It's every volunteer's hope that the program's lessons will stick to the impressionable minds of youth.
But sometimes that's not the case.
"I bumped into a twelfth grader who told me he didn't remember anything from the program," Mackenzie recalled.
"I couldn't believe it."
The lessons depicted in the P.A.R.T.Y. program address all youth but kids of Humboldt and the RM should especially listen.
Not only is impaired driving the highest in Saskatchewan, incidents of this crime are significantly higher in rural areas, according to Statistics Canada. Lower rates in metropolitan areas could be related to greater access to public transportation, the report said.
"It's important to get through to them right now," said Const. Trevor Scott of the Humboldt RCMP detachment.
"They're at the age where they're getting their driver's licence and starting to go to parties, so we have to get at them while they're young," Scott said.
The P.A.R.T.Y. program acts as a preventive measure for youth, hoping to sway them from falling into the statistically largest group of impaired drivers, those 20 to 24 years of age.
Out of all personnel, Mortensen said it's the RCMP who has the toughest job out of all the responders to a drunk driving accident.
"They have to get in their car, go to someone's house and tell them they've lost a loved one. And the saddest part is that it could have been prevented."
A delicate task which may have presented itself to the family of Justin Knackstedt, a Saskatchewan conservation officer who was tragically struck and killed by an impaired driver this past Friday, the night after the program at HCI took place.
A Quill Lake resident, Knackstedt's death brings the program's lessons close to home.
