Photograph by George Sakkestad

Christine Shimizu and Reed Kauner find it's not so easy to shoot a basket when wearing Vision Impairing Goggles, which simulate drunkenness.

Goggles show students the dark side of being drunk

By Michelle Alaimo

Some students at Saint Andrew's School got a sobering dose of reality March 2 when they learned firsthand what it's like to be drunk, without ever taking a sip of alcohol.

The simulation is provided thanks to a new device, Fatal Vision Goggles.

While they were unable to perform the simplest of tasks, including tying their shoes, many students were nearly falling over and had trouble walking.

The result: Students learned that no one in that state should ever get behind the wheel of a car and drive.

The goggles simulate the effects of what it is like to be legally drunk--over .08 blood alcohol level--in a high-tech way.

Many students found out that being drunk isn't so much fun.

"I felt real dizzy. I felt like I was going to fall down and throw up at any minute," sixth-grader Reed Kavner said.

While many other students said they also felt dizzy, others said things looked strange and most had a hard time walking a straight line, tying their shoes or shooting a basketball through a hoop.

Santa Clara County Sheriff Deputy Steffanie Turini led students wearing the goggles through a mock sobriety checkpoint that involved walking in a straight line. While it looked like a simple task, the students found out things aren't so simple while intoxicated.

"Everything looks real bent, sort of like when you put on the wrong glasses," sixth-grader Roxana Safipour said.

The Fatal Vision Goggles, on loan from the Los Gatos-based group Community Against Substance Abuse, were available for all sixth- to eighth-graders to wear during gym call as part of Drug Awareness Week.

Four pairs of goggles are set to day vision and have a simulated, preset blood alcohol content of .17, or nearly twice the legal limit. Another set, tuned for night vision, were preset at the legally drunk blood alcohol content of .08.

"We wanted to show them why being drunk is not really a good idea," parent Nancy Hendrix said.

She said the school wanted to show students what it's like to be drunk because children at that age are so impressionable. Most of them start trying alcohol once they enter high school, Hendrix said.

Turini said she thought the use of the goggles would make a lasting impression on students. "It's giving them an actual chance to see what it's like to be impaired. It gives them something to relate back to."

Parent Joanne Strickland said the children found watching their classmates stumble around with the glasses on funny at first, until they tried it themselves. She later said the students' fun turned into fear when they realized how disorienting being drunk can be.

Students were also asked to imagine what would happen if someone were driving drunk in the car next to them. Many students said they knew exactly what would happen.

"Now I can understand why people who drive drunk swerve all over the road," sixth-grader Jessica Gould said. She said that even dribbling a basketball or making a basket would be a near-impossible task while drunk.

That is exactly the message that Hendrix hoped children would learn from the goggles.

"Wearing the goggles sure makes me not want to drink or take any drugs when I grow up," Francys Scott said.

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