On Thursday, April 24, 2025, multiple agencies, along with the Ray Unified School District, hosted a Mock DUI event, but with a little twist. The scene also included the driver of the second vehicle (George Wade) briefly taking his eye off the road to lean into a group selfie on a passenger’s cell phone. This event helps put a visual lesson on the possible consequences of driving while under the influence as well as cell phone distractions while driving.
Staged on Ray’s football field, two visibly damaged cars sat as though they had been involved in a head on collision. Pinal County Sheriff Ross Teeple gave the attendees background on the scene as a call rang through his police radio alerting agencies of the accident with injuries.
When Kearny and Hayden Police Department, as well as Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, arrive on scene they find five victims. The driver of vehicle #2 (Veronica Baez) does an excellent job exiting the vehicle appearing intoxicated. She even tried to make a run from PCSO but is quickly apprehended. They pull her aside and begin doing field sobriety test, emphasizing on “Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus” and teaching a small biology lesson to the crowd on what that is and how it is used to check the intoxication levels of a driver.
Photo by Nichole Aranda
As the police are doing initial investigations, they are joined by multiple EMS agencies. Kearny Volunteer Fire Department and EMS (Cobre Valley Ambulance), Winkelman Volunteer Fire Department, Superior Fire Department, and Ray Mine Rescue all arrive on scene to assess damage, extricate victims, and provide necessary triage.
Vehicle #1 appeared to be more serious than the other. Front seat passenger (RJ Nunez) lays across the hood of the car, apparent that he had been ejected through the windshield due to not wearing a seatbelt. EMS quickly assess him and announce him dead on arrival. Then the driver was assessed to be in serious condition. PHI Air Medical (Air Evac 7) is dispatched to the scene to airlift the victim. They arrive at the scene and EMS quickly gets him into the helicopter.
The third passenger (Seth Wade) sustains only mild injuries due to correctly wearing his seatbelt, however, he is stuck in the vehicle. Firefighters quickly bring out the “Jaws of Life” effectively removing the top of the vehicle and extraditing the passenger, who was treated and released to his parents.
Photo by Nichole Aranda
While all of this is going on, the Pinal County Medical Examiner arrives. They began photographing the accident, cataloging injuries, and gathering evidence due to the deceased victim. It was announced this had been classified as an “Aggravated Vehicular Homicide” case. They quickly call Griffith Mortuary to remove the victim from the scene. Upon arrival, Griffith’s removal technicians (Sam Horton and Chris Geddis) assist the Medical Examiner with placing the body on a stretcher in a body bag to remove evidence. As they are loading him, the victim’s mother (Mona Benevidez) comes running up and screaming hysterically. She throws herself on his body and was pulled away from law enforcement. He was loaded into the hearse and taken to the Pinal County Medical Examiners’ Office.
Photo by Nichole Aranda
Along with the driver of vehicle #2, the front seat passenger (Kylie Jenkins) was knocked out by the airbag with visible head trauma. She was loaded into Asarco/Grupo Mexico’s ambulance and taken to a nearby hospital.
This chaotic, traumatic visualization gives a great perspective of how damaging irresponsible choices can make and how many moving parts it takes to prevent an incident from going from bad to worse. This was a perfectly accurate depiction of what takes place on the scene of an accident. The whole event took only a matter of minutes from the original call to clean up; but in reality, having all the emergency personnel on scene is just organized chaos, everyone going above and beyond to do their part, sometimes taking hours to clear a scene.
We would like to send a huge thank you to all of those involved in making this event happen: Darien Matthews and Emilia Rutledge with Arizona Youth Partnership, Ray Unified School District personnel and students, Kearny and Hayden Police Departments, Town of Kearny, Kearny, Winkelman and Superior Fire Departments and EMS, Kearny Dispatch, Ray Mine Rescue Team, PHI Air Medical, Sheriff Ross Teeple and the Pinal County Sheriffs Office, Pinal County Medical Examiner’s Office, Elks BPOE #2478, Griffith Mortuary, and of course the terrific actors involved.