"Save a Life" Tour Visits Navy Region Northwest

From Navy Public Affairs Support Element West, Det. Northwest

June 29, 2010 - EVERETT, Wash. (NNS) -- The Save a Life Tour (SALT) visited installations around Navy Region Northwest (NRNW) June 21-30 providing alcohol awareness training and education about the dangers of drinking and driving.

According to their website, SALT is the most advanced high-impact alcohol awareness program in the nation. The event opened with a 20-minute video showing results of drunk driving along with facts and figures. The video also featured the Jacqueline Saburido story to show how drunk driving not only affects the victims, but their friends and families as well. Participants were required to take a 10-question alcohol survey during the event.

"I think everybody in the Navy knows not to drink and drive, but when you see a program like this, the sad stories, the bodies strewn over the highway, it just drives home the point better," said Cmdr. Dean Grant, Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) Everett commanding officer, from Jefferson, S.C. "We all need to be reminded of the seriousness of drinking and driving. It's very effective, and it's a good reminder."

Operations Specialist 1st Class (SW) Darrel Upton, Naval Station Everett command Drug and Alcohol Program advisor, from Houston, who helped coordinate the events, said he likes to be inventive in his training, and when he found out about SALT two years ago he wanted to get it to the region installations.

"If more bases got involved with programs like this, I think our numbers [of alcohol related incidents] would go down," said Upton. "It's a very impressive set-up."

After the presentation, participants were invited to use a multimillion-dollar drunk-driving simulator. The simulator uses a gradual system that raises the difficulty level from 0, completely sober with no delay in reaction time, to 11, approximately a .34 blood-alcohol content in a 165-pound person, resulting in a one second delay in the gas, brake and steering of the vehicle according to Christopher Rich, a SALT manager, from Dayton, Ohio, who lost a sister to a drunk driving accident when she was 16.

"That simulator is outstanding. At first you sit there driving and everything's good, but the next thing you know you start swerving all over the place. I'm a pretty good driver, I've never gotten a ticket in my life, but with that I would've gotten tickets all over the board," said Damage Controlman 2nd Class (SW/AW) Dennis Cherry, assigned to NOSC Everett, from Oklahoma City. "This is a great learning tool to deglamourize [alcohol], especially for our younger Sailors."

The program runs three tours throughout the U.S., visiting military bases, high schools and colleges along with overseas military installations. Each tour runs for 10 months out of the year in five-month shifts with a month long break in-between.

According to Rich, the feedback he gets tells him the program is working.

"People usually call me back and tell me their numbers went down [after our training]," said Rich. "If we get just one person, then it's worth it, but, in a way, that's not good enough for me; I want to get everybody, but it's not really possible."

"SALT really gets the message out there to our Sailors," said Chief Electrician's Mate (SS) Randy Smitha, Naval Base Kitsap Bangor Trident Training Facility instructor. "The videos they show is a real wake-up call for service members and we hope to send the right message out there that drinking and driving is dangerous."