Local students get lesson in safe driving

WINSTON COUNTY - On Feb. 6, students from Winston County Schools attended the first Lutzie 43 Foundation Safe Driving Summit ever held in the state of Alabama, engaging with local and state first responders, doctors, nurses, physical therapists and even truck drivers from the American Trucking Association at Wallace State Community College to learn road safety tips and get vividly familiar with the possible consequences of distracted or impaired driving and not wearing seatbelts.

The summit's message was a crucial one for this audience of sophomores, juniors and seniors because Winston County has the third highest rate of teen fatalities in car accidents in the state of Alabama, according to Mike Lutzenkirchen, executive director of the Lutzie 43 Foundation.

"You guys (in Winston County) are only six percent of our licensed drivers, and yet 13 percent of your crashes involve teenagers," Kaylyn Owens, a civil engineer with the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT), told students at the summit.

The Lutzie 43 Foundation was established in memory of Mike's son, Philip Lutzenkirchen, the former Auburn tight end (No. 43) who caught the game-winning touchdown in the 2010 Iron Bowl. He was killed when he was thrown from the rear seat of an SUV during a crash in 2014. Philip was not wearing a seatbelt. He, the driver and the other passengers had been drinking.
The Lutzie 43 Foundation's motto for drivers is "Live like Lutz. Love like Lutz. Learn from Lutz."

Mike has been telling Philip's story at Safe Driving Summits in Georgia and at other events in various locations, including at Meek High School in 2022, for over ten years and has now partnered with ALDOT and its Drive Safe Alabama Initiative to bring a pilot program of three summits to Alabama.

ALDOT Public Information Specialist Allison Green worked with Mike for two years to bring the Lutzie 43 Foundation's summits to Alabama, he said.

"(It's a) good experience for the teens that's more hands on and not just like they're sitting in their classroom being lectured," Green said.

"We have almost 1,000 fatalities on the roads in Alabama every year, but there's many more serious injuries that are happening in these crashes. We don't often think about these people. They are the ones who are left (to do) sometimes years of rehab, trying to regain some of the things that they lost in that crash. Sometimes there's a traumatic brain injury, and that necessarily doesn't always heal," she pointed out. "They can't perform (their job) anymore because their thought processes are now in a state where they aren't able to."

The students' day at this first summit began in a general assembly with Rick Karle, former Fox 6 sports director who may be more familiar to some from the Rick Karle Good News Facebook page, serving as host.

Karle introduced ALDOT West Central Region Engineer Wallace McAdory, who shared some eye-opening statistics.

He said that Winston County had over 320 vehicle crashes in 2023, and 13 of those involved fatalities. He also said that 60 percent of people who die in crashes in Alabama are not wearing seatbelts.

Karle next introduced Winston County Schools Superintendent Jeff Scott, who told the students about a tragic car crash he experienced as an 11-year-old child. He was in the backseat, not wearing a seatbelt, and was thrown from the car when it was hit by a drunk driver. He survived, but his 14-year-old brother Timmy was killed.

"When I woke up, I had emergency responders with me, and the car was down in the bottom of a ravine," Scott said. "It was on fire. My brother was in the front seat. He wasn't wearing a seat belt. He got threw out and got trapped under the car, and I was held down on the side of the road and watched that car burn on top of him.

"So, the choices that we make, folks, it don't only affect you," he pointed out. "It affects everybody. You know, my brother wasn't drinking, but because of the drunk driver, he was killed that night."

Mike also focused on choices when he gave the summit's keynote address. After noting that according to as yet unofficial figures, 955 people died in car crashes in Alabama in 2024, 59 of them teenagers, he said, "One word (that) you haven't heard today, you've heard too much, and you won't hear (it) today. If you hear it, it was a mistake.These lives were not lost because of an accident. They were crashes. Decisions that were made by drivers or other people that took lives. That's how my son died."

He said a two-second habit, fastening a seatbelt, could have saved his son's life, and he urged the students to develop that habit and not let anything, whether embarrassment or defiance of authority, get in the way of buckling up. He told them if they left the summit with only one take away, it should be the importance of wearing a seatbelt.

However, he also spoke about the dangers of distracted or impaired driving and the importance of being good passengers who do not distract the driver.

"Another lesson I want you to learn is the role you play as teenage passenger," Mike said. "No matter if you're in the front seat or the back seat, the role you play (is) to make sure your friend gets that vehicle to where you're going safe and gets you home safe. There's not a campaign that addresses that. I want you to take that message home."

He introduced Owens, a recent University of Alabama graduate, who shared the above statistic, talked about distracted driving and showed a video that explained Alabama's new distracted driving law.

Next, Lt. Jason Harris of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) shared a scenario of a car crash that he said is very common. It centered on a teenage driver--"you"--who left home late one rainy morning and didn't take time to put on a seatbelt. The driver was eating breakfast and talking to their friend on the way to school. In a hurry, the driver decided to pass a semi truck but accidentally changed lanes in front of another car.  The driver yanked the wheel to correct the mistake and ran off the road, going airborne over the guard rail.

"Only you can prevent some of these contributing circumstances," Harris pointed out.

Then, dozens of first responders from Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA), Winston County Sheriff's Office, Cullman County Sheriff's Office, Double Springs Police Department, Arley Fire Department, the Winston County Rescue Squad, Cullman EMS and the Winston County Coroner's Office introduced themselves and described what their roles would be at the scene of this crash.

"We're usually the first ones on the scene," said Arley Fire Chief James Rickett. "Priority one is the patient. Whatever he needs, we're going to do. Stabilize the patient, package him up, get him ready for the ambulance or the helicopter. If he's on the east side of the county, if you've got a bad trauma, you're going to fly to Birmingham or Huntsville if the weather provides. If not, you're going to ride an ambulance all the way over there."

Winston County Deputy Coroner Brian Koontz even described how he and Coroner Tracey Holley would take the body of the dead driver to the morgue, examine it, look for injuries and drugs and take blood and urine samples to send off for toxicology.

Conservation Enforcement Officer Ernie Stephens also told the students about a rollover crash he was in at age 16. "Four of us in the car. I was in the back seat," he said. "I was the only one that had my seat belt on. I was the only one not injured. Remember that."

The students spent the rest of the day at Wallace State attending break-out sessions in smaller groups.

They were able to have a Q&A with all the first responders, who spoke candidly about their own teenage driving mistakes and crashes as well as those they had worked.

In another session, students learned important tips about sharing the road with eighteen wheelers, including what large blindspots the drivers of those trucks have. Students got to climb into the cab of one of two big rigs with an experienced driver and see the blindspots for themselves.

"If you are looking from in there at your mirrors, you would not be able to see this SUV (parked beside the truck's trailer)," said Bretten Ward, Winston County High School junior. "You'd think you would be able to, but you can't. The tent they have set up on the other side of it, you cannot see either."

The Georgia Department of Public Safety's Motor Carrier Compliance Division brought a big rig trailer full of driving simulators so students could experience what it was like to try to stop an eighteen wheeler traveling 60 mph.

The Georgia state troopers said a fully loaded semi weighs around 80,000 pounds and needs a lot of room to stop, pointing out that if one of the teenage drivers in the room had to make a panic stop while driving in front of a semi, the semi would have to do so as well.

Senior Trooper D. Griffis said drivers should leave two complete truck lengths between their vehicles and semis when moving into the lane ahead of them.

Students also learned that it is dangerous to drive beside the wheels of semis because they are so highly pressurized.

"A 10-speed bike tire has a pressure of 60 psi," said David Schroeder, a captain with the American Trucking Association and a driver for FedEx Freight in Ohio and Indiana. "A big truck tire has a pressure of 95-110 psi. "They're violent (when they blow). If you're traveling right here, sitting beside this tire . . . and that truck tire blows and a chunk of it comes through the window, somebody could get serious injured even killed. Please, please do not linger right here. Either slow down and let the truck go on by or speed up and let the truck come back over."

In another break-out session, students witnessed a reenactment of an ER trauma team, composed of real doctors and nurses from Wellstar Trauma Network, Children's Hospital of Alabama and UAB Medicine, working on a patient who had hit a tree while not wearing a seatbelt.

Cullman EMS paramedics Destiny Kinser and Trinity Martinez brought the patient, portrayed by a real person, into the mock ER.

After students witnessed mock treatment like intubation, the insertion of a central line and a Foley catheter and even a thoracotomy to shock the heart directly, they were told that where they lived, they might go through all of these life-saving measures at a local ER only to have to be airlifted to another hospital for surgery.

Students next attended a session with physical therapy/rehabilitation professionals from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta who showed them the effects of a traumatic brain injury on a real teenager using photos, explained how injuries to one side of the brain affect the opposite side of the body and how injuries in different parts of the brain have different impacts, including on hearing, speech, vision, spatial awareness and balance.

Students learned that a brain injury might be treated by removing part of the skull so the brain could swell without pressing against it and then later removing a blood clot and the part of the brain it's in.

"How are we fixing this brain?" the therapist asked, holding up a model with a portion of the brain removed. "We're not. . . . Once that damage is done, it's done. This brain is never going to have the same personality. It's never going to have the same cognitive abilities, and the best we can do is try in rehab to get you as functional as possible."

The therapist also discussed spinal cord injuries, which there is also no way to repair. She indicated the an injury high on the spinal cord could leave one paralyzed from there down, unable to stand, sit upright or turn over in bed. Someone with such an injury also wouldn't be able to control their bowels or bladders. They'd have to use a catheter, inserting it multiple times a day, or someone else would have to do so if the injury was high enough they couldn't grasp the tubing themselves, students were told.

"Over 50 percent of these injuries happen because people didn't put their seatbelt on," the therapist said.

The students were then divided into groups to experience what some activities, including putting on a T-shirt, would be like if they were paralyzed in various parts of their body or suffered vision loss.

Scott described the sessions he attended as eye-opening.

"It's just a great opportunity for our students and I greatly appreciate them doing it," Scott said. "Hopefully, we can get them to realize the choices that they make are going to have a major impact on their lives. Any time that we get an opportunity like this, we certainly want to take advantage of it."

He gave credit to Winston County Schools Curriculum Director Marla Price for connecting with the Lutzie 43 Foundation and working to make sure Winston County students were able to attend the summit.

"It was a vision and a dream of mine to try to bring this to all of our students, to give them all an opportunity to learn the lessons that were presented today," Price said. "It is just a thrill to see it finally happen."

She continued, "I'm just very appreciative and thankful to all the agencies that were represented here today (and for) the efforts of the Lutzie 43 Foundation. They are outstanding at what they do, and I would love to see it grow, too.

"We care for young people, and we want all of them to make better decisions and stay safe," she concluded.

At the end of the day, Mike again addressed all the students, this time about the "43 Key Seconds to Safe Driving." Each student, he said, was going to receive a key on a lanyard to hang on their rear view mirror and a checklist of things the key was meant to remind them what to have and do whenever they get in a car: "Clear head, clear hands, clear eyes and click it."

"If you do something deliberate for 21 days, whether it's a good habit or a bad habit, it becomes a habit," Mike said. "It works. I encourage you first and foremost to take this home to Mom and Dad and share what you learned here today."

Before the day ended, Wallace State College President Vicki Karolewics greeted the students and invited them to enroll at the college once they graduate.

As Price pointed out, the day had also doubled as a kind of campus tour.