Eastern Alamance stages mock crash to warn students before prom season

A staged impaired-driving crash at Eastern Alamance High School turned prom-season warnings into a visible public-safety drill, just hours before students prepared for their May 2 prom.

The demonstration brought together the Mebane Fire Department, the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office, the North Carolina Highway Patrol and Daggett Shuler Law at the school, 4040 Mebane Rogers Road in Mebane. It was aimed at the choices that matter most when prom weekend arrives: who is driving, who is wearing a seat belt, and whether anyone gets in a car with an impaired driver.

Eastern Alamance’s 2026 prom is scheduled for 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday, and school leaders used the mock crash to show how quickly a celebration can turn into an emergency response. Students who attended pledged to celebrate responsibly, a reminder that the message was not abstract. The point was to make the consequences visible before families, dates and friends head out for the night.

The Mebane Fire Department’s role carried added weight. The department says it is a registered Permanent Checking Station and a member of Alamance County Safe Kids and Buckle Up North Carolina, and it has automatic mutual aid agreements with both Alamance and Orange counties. In a real wreck, that means help can spread fast across agency lines, with firefighters, deputies and troopers converging on the scene as soon as a crash call comes in.

The sheriff’s office also underscored how central local law enforcement is to that response. Sheriff Terry S. Johnson has served as Alamance County sheriff since 2002, and the office handles county law enforcement, detention and court duties. The Mebane Police Department, which serves the area as well, says its dispatch runs through Alamance County’s 911 communications system.

The timing was especially stark in Alamance County, where the dangers of reckless driving are not theoretical. In June 2025, Southeast Alamance High School senior Lily Rose Hahn was killed in a crash that later led to a second-degree murder indictment against the driver accused in the case. That loss still hangs over prom and graduation season, giving the mock crash at Eastern Alamance a clear purpose: one bad decision can end in sirens, trauma and a criminal case, not just a ride home gone wrong.