Barksdale gets 'Street Smart' Published Aug. 15, 2011 By Senior Airman La'Shanette V. Garrett 2nd Bomb Wing Public Affairs BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. -- A 23-year old active-duty Airman attends a party. After having more drinks than he planned, he decides to reach in his pocket for his cell phone to call a ride. As he pulls his phone out he realizes he has a text message from a hottie he met earlier in the night,--"Hey Jason, I'm headed home. Meet me there in 20 minutes." Driving down the road unrestrained and impaired, Jason reaches for his cell phone and hits another vehicle head on. He is thrown into the steering wheel and then into the windshield on impact. He suffers from two collapsed lungs, fractured ribs, a separated sternum, two snapped femurs, a cracked pelvis and a spinal cord injury. This is the scenario that Scott McIntyre and Joseph H. McCluan presented to the audience and gave to volunteer Airman 1st Class Jason McNew, 2nd Maintenance Squadron aerospace ground equipment journeyman, during the "Street Smart" safety presentation at Hoban Hall on Barksdale Air Force Base, La., Aug. 12. More than 800 Team Barksdale members showed up for the presentation. Barksdale is one of 75 military installations the "Street Smart" program will visit across the United States and overseas. Part of a military initiative, "Street Smart" is being sponsored by Anheuser-Busch with a grant of $170,000. McIntyre and McCluan are firefighter paramedics from Orlando, Fla., and represent Stay Alive From Education, which organized the program and aims to take the audience into real life drama experienced by firefighters/paramedics as they work to save the lives of individuals who have made poor choices when it comes to drinking and driving, using drugs and not wearing seat belts. "We found the need as firefighter paramedics to start this program because we are running a lot of traffic crashes with needless deaths of people not wearing seatbelts, drinking and driving and texting while driving - basically making poor choices," said McIntyre. "So we decided to do something about it." After showing a slideshow of graphic pictures of the aftermath of car crashes, the firefighters then began discussing the ways in which alcohol and drugs can affect the brain and alter judgment. "This program allows us to show and talk about those dangers and the consequences of people's actions from a different point of view--our point of view as firefighter paramedics," stated McIntyre. After discussing reasons why people choose not to wear seatbelts, the firefighters then pulled a volunteer from the audience; McNew was chosen as the ideal candidate. They proceeded to place McNew on a stretcher, strapped him down and began demonstrating and explaining many of the injuries and painful procedures the paramedics would have to perform on him to save his life. "Just going through the demonstration of those procedures was overwhelming," said McNew. "It didn't make me change anything, because I wear my seatbelt faithfully. But it made me appreciate and respect what I do on a daily basis - buckle up." McIntyre stated that the main thing to do is use common sense; there is a seatbelt in the car for a reason. Use the designated driving programs and the wingman concept and enjoy life. The number one noncombat killer of military members is car crashes. It only takes 30 seconds to put a seatbelt on--but over an hour to do an autopsy. "Every 12 minutes in the United States someone dies in a car crash - since we have been here, four people have died and number five is about three minutes away," said McIntyre. For more information on the SAFE program visit www.safeprogram.com.