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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Operation Outreach
One driven firefighter's crusade against drinking and driving
By Pam Marino
It was a grim scene at Cupertino High School last week, as a half- dozen firefighters worked with the "jaws of life" to pry open the door of a smashed car and extract two injured teens. A young man lay lifeless on the ground nearby, his gray sneakers poking out from a light-blue piece of plastic that covered his head and body. An empty, torn box that once held a 12-pack of beer lay to one side of the car.
Each year, scenes like this play out over and over again across the country: Drunk driving kills an average of eight teenagers a day in the United States, according to figures from Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
Fortunately for the teens in last week's scene at Cupertino High School, it was just that: a scene. The blood trickling down the victims' faces and arms was fake. The "dead" student lay on the ground for 15 minutes, a visual reminder to the nearly 200 teens watching in the bleachers that someday, they or their friends could face the same fate if they made the choice to drink alcohol and drive.
"Then we have to call your parents and tell them you're dead," Joe Viramontez, captain of the Santa Clara County Central Fire District told the students, most of whom sat wide-eyed as they watched the firefighters and sheriff's deputies cut the roof off the car and fold back the broken safety glass of the windshield like they were folding back a bedspread.
It was part of a dramatic presentation by Operation Outreach, a new non-profit organization founded by Viramontez. It's a new organization, but it's based on an old idea of the captain's. He has carried it out for seven years with the help of his bosses at the Santa Clara County Fire District, and the volunteer work of fellow fire fighters, paramedics, the Sheriff's Department and American Medical Response, the county's contract ambulance company. The team visits all of Cupertino's high schools, as well as other high schools in the valley, every year during prom and graduation season to pry open yet another smashed car and drive home the message: Drinking and driving can be fatal.
"I know the students are listening. They are totally silenced, there's not a word in the stands. They're all focused on what we're doing," Viramontez said of the presentations, usually held on the high schools' football fields.
Coupled with the crash scene are speakers, victims of drunk driving crashes. Afterwards, students can ask questions of the speakers and firefighters.
"In a time when kids feel they're not being listened to, and that no one wants to talk to them, we use that time to let them know we really care about them," Viramontez said.
Viramontez, a full-time fire captain, husband and father, and part-time youth pastor at a Campbell church, is now on a mission to raise funds so that he and the other volunteers can bring the message to even more Santa Clara County schools.
"My vision for Operation Outreach is that every single high school junior and senior would see this program throughout the county," Viramontez said. He also wants Operation Outreach to do more than just warn against drinking and driving, he wants it to promote drug-free and alcohol-free lifestyles. "We want to set a higher standard," he said.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Joe Viramontez, Santa Clara County Central Fire District's captain, explains the steps emergency crews follow at the scene of a drunken driving accident.
This year the organization made nine presentations; he's projecting 12 to 13 presentations next year.
Already Cupertinians have responded to the need with donations. The Cupertino Rotary Club recently gave Viramontez a $500 check, just after Hanson Permanente Cement donated $1,000. City Councilwoman Sandra James, one of Operation Outreach's biggest fans, has helped Viramontez in the fundraising efforts, including helping to find grants from companies and organizations. She sits on the organization's board of directors. Viramontez recently submitted a grant to the Office of Traffic Safety in Washington, D.C., that could bring $40,000 over a three-year period.
Viramontez admits he's not yet comfortable with the fundraising role, because he's never had to do it. But the sight of so many dead kids in so many crashed cars is what spurs Viramontez on.
"My passion is with young people, and I'm tired of seeing kids killed because of wrong choices," Viramontez said.
The sight of a kid who nearly died is what started Viramontez on his quest to prevent more crashes.
In 1987 Viramontez was on the scene after a single-car crash in Los Gatos, when then-17-year-old Brandon Silvaria hit a tree after a night of partying. Silvaria suffered massive internal injuries and brain damage. "He was hanging on by a thread," Viramontez remembered. After weeks in a hospital, he was transferred to a rehabilitation center, and eventually had to relearn everything, including speaking and eating.
The rescue of Silvaria and his recovery caught the attention of the producers of "Rescue 911," and Viramontez and others who helped Silvaria were featured in a re-creation of the crash.
Producing the crash scene for television got Viramontez to thinking: If high school kids could see a live crash scene, see how rescue crews work to save victim's lives, see injuries and deaths, maybe they could be reached in a way that no speech or video could reach them.
"We're talking about an MTV generation who has seen it all and lived it all--or so they think," Viramontez said.
The clincher, he thought, would be to bring in Silvaria to tell the students how his life changed in an instant--how he went from having his whole life before him in college and beyond, and how he now struggles with a speech impediment and other difficulties that have slowed him down.
Silvaria agreed to be a speaker, and Viramontez's bosses and co-workers promised to volunteer time and equipment for the events. Silvaria has since gone on to speak nationally; three speakers who were victims of drunk drivers now rotate between the presentations. Local towing companies were called upon to donate crashed cars. Cupertino Towing donates not only cars, but towing services for free. Other towing companies charge a nominal fee to compensate for their costs. If need be, the firefighters will take a sledgehammer to the cars, along with fake blood, to better dramatize the crashes.
Stunned students and grateful school administrators began to rave about the presentations to others.
"High school students were calling me at home and saying 'bring it to our school,' " Viramontez said. "I found out there was a need."
But taking it to more schools would mean money, so the only option was to become an official non-profit organization in order to accept donations, he said.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Firefighters use the jaws of life to free an accident 'victim.'
Another change this year has been the use of students as crash victims. For years fire department volunteers have donned the makeup and blood for presentations, but it was decided that using students would be more dramatic. "It brings the reality in a little bit more," Viramontez said.
Besides going to more schools, Viramontez said he also wants Operation Outreach to develop curriculum with educators, so that the message can follow students into classrooms.
For now, however, Viramontez will continue to organize the presentations. Last week at Cupertino High, students watched as firefighters took a large cutting tool to cut the top of a brown compact car and turn it into an instant convertible.
There was an audible "wow," from students, some of whom had their heads in their hands, eyes wide, staring in apparent disbelief.
"I thought it was cool," said senior Jeanette Khayali after the presentation.
Tisii Hufanga, also a senior, said he was moved by what he saw.
"It's a lot more real seeing it right in front of you."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
