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Show - Nurses participate in CARE Three Lakeview Hospital Emergency Department Registered Nurses are participants in the nationwide Emergency Nurses CARE (Cancel Alcohol Related Emergencies) program. CARE was started approximately three years ago in a Boston hospital emergency room whe'n the night shift nurses realized that something had to be done about all the needless deaths and injuries they were seeing as a result of alcohol-related alcohol-related accidents. This group of nurses decided to form a group that would speak at schools around the country to educate children about the dangers involved in drinking and driving. Two Lakeview registered nurses, Valerie Barrett and Sheri Str-ingham, Str-ingham, were among the first Utah nurses trained to present the pro-j pro-j gram. Since their training, they have presented the program at many schools in the Salt Lake and Davis County areas. Recently, Cathy Green, R.N. completed the program's training course and has begun to make presentations. pre-sentations. L Lakeview Hospital supports the CARE program by allowing the nurses time during the day to make presentations and paying them for their time spent on the program. The program begins with some statistics about alcohol-related accidents ac-cidents and continues with a slide show of graphic scenes of accident victims. These graphic pictures capture cap-ture the audience's attention by showing them in a realistic manner what can happen in a drinking and driving accident After seeing the program presented as a project by one of his students, one health teacher said that he will use CARE in all of his classes. When asked why the program is ;jo successful, Barrett stated, "I think that the program's success is related to the nurses' ability to add real life experiences treating these emergencies. Telling students about personal experiences drives the points home." For example, in one presentation, Barrett told about a 17-year-old boy she treated who was drinking after school one day and ran through a stop sign. He hit a car with a pregnant preg-nant woman driving and her two-year-old child as a passenger. Both the boy and the two-year-old were not seriously injured, but the driver was. In the end, the mother's injuries were too critical, and she could not be saved. This affected the former honor student and athlete so greatly that he was seen in the emergency room three times during the next year. These visits were for suicide attempts. America's youth is the only age group in the country where life expectancy ex-pectancy is decreasing. Alcohol-related Alcohol-related accidents kill more people between the ages of 15 and 24 than all other diseases combined. For more information about Emergency Nurses CARE, call 299-2141. 299-2141. ' |