`DEAD' FOR A DAY DRAMA DRIVES DANGER HOME.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

LITTLEROCK - Sixteen-year-old Christal Martinez sobbed as she explained how it felt to imagine she had died.

``You're there one instant, and the next you're gone,'' said Christal, who was one of 22 Littlerock High School students pulled from class Tuesday in a dramatization of the consequences of drunk driving. ``It was the most traumatic program I have ever been through, but the most worth it. We didn't even get a chance to say goodbye and that's what really hurts.''

In tears also, classmate Silhouette Licon hugged her friend.

``I heard the announcement (about Christal being ``killed'') and I had to take a deep breath and remember it wasn't real,'' said Silhouette, 17. ``It was enough to make me remember how important our friends are and life is.''

The blood and the car crash were fake, but the emotions were real in the two-day Every 15 Minutes program, aimed at driving home the statistic that, on average, an American teen-ager dies in an alcohol-related crash every 15 minutes.

At Littlerock High, 22 students were called one by one out of their classrooms Tuesday by a sheriff's deputy and a volunteer dressed as the Grim Reaper. The deputy then read an obituary written by the student's family.

After the last of the 22 was pulled from class, students were brought outside to watch rescue crews work on a mock crash in front of the school.

Two teens and a teacher acted as victims, one teen pretending to be badly injured and a teen and the teacher lying motionless - covered with fake blood - as if dead.

The student pretending to be injured was flown by helicopter to Antelope Valley Hospital, where she was hooked up to monitoring equipment, then pronounced dead.

The other teen and the teacher were covered with sheets as they lay in the street.

A third teen acted as the driver, pretending to be intoxicated and going through breath and blood tests before being put into a Lancaster sheriff's station jail cell.

The 22 students pulled out of class and the participants of the mock crash were taken to the Antelope Valley Inn to spend the night away from family and friends.

At the hotel, the teens listened to several speakers, including a husband and wife team who spoke on behalf of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The man and woman lost their 18-year-old daughter to a drunk driver.

The next morning in the Littlerock High gym, juniors and seniors watched videotaped footage from the mock crash, listening to the 911 call and rescue crews' radio messages.

Then the 22 students - called ``the living dead'' - gave speeches to their classmates about what it felt like to leave them without saying goodbye and how it hurt to believe that a classmate or friend was dead.

``I wanted to call my family and I couldn't,'' said Laila Olsen, 17, one of the 22. ``I wanted to see how they reacted, to see if they were upset, but we couldn't call.''

The program was planned long in advance, organizers said. Counselor Raymond Hart hand-picked each student to be called out of class and organized the efforts of the emergency and rescue crews.

Parents were notified in advance that their children were being chosen to take part. Some were still deeply affected by the thought of losing their child.

``We couldn't even write her obituary,'' said Charlotte Ramos, whose daughter Jessica was one of the 22. ``We had to have her brother do it. It was just very emotional.''

``That was pretty trying,'' added Andy Ramos, Jessica's father. ``The possibility of her actually being in that scenario really hit home.''

The program could be instituted at other Antelope Valley high schools, officials said.

``It is up to the individual school sites if they would want to participate in the program,'' said Antelope Valley Union High School District Superintendent Robert Girolamo. ``Some of the schools have already participated, but on a smaller scale.''