Emily was among 50 Year 10 students from Bathurst High School who had a confronting lesson in the consequences of risk-taking yesterday.

The PARTY (Prevent Alcohol and Risk-Related Trauma in Youth) Program was held at Bathurst Hospital for the first time, with students seeing first-hand the graphic effects of risk-related behaviour.

Students toured through the emergency department, intensive care unit and morgue and witnessed hospital staff resuscitate ‘patients’ (mannequins) and also met other ‘patients’ who weren’t so lucky and died from their injuries.

Emily, and her school-mate Nadia English, 15, say drugs, alcohol, parties and speeding in cars are part of the “everyday” risks many teenagers their age come into contact with.

“A couple of our friends have had their stomachs pumped,” Emily said.

During the visit to the emergency department, hospital staff simulated a medical emergency on a mannequin in which the person would end up in a high-dependent nursing home.

This was a lasting image for Emily, who said she didn’t realise how easily a risky incident could end up causing a life-long disability.

“The whole thing shocked me, I think it’ll make me think before we do things,” Nadia said.

This is exactly the type of reaction PARTY co-ordinator Maura Desmond was hoping for from the program.

She said there is a high number of trauma accidents among young people, in particular those in regional areas, which she says is partly due to easy access to motorbikes and other vehicles in paddocks.

But drugs and alcohol are also commonly used by young people,  according to Miss Desmond, and some of yesterday’s scenarios were based around this.

“It’s [the program] about vivid, clinical reality we’re bringing them,” she said.

“It’s not only a shock, it’s more to get them to think, and think more in depth about each of the situations they would go into.”

Miss Desmond said the human brain is not fully developed until around 25 years old and it’s a “function of their brains to take risks”.

Bathurst Hospital’s trauma staff led the visit with colleagues from Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital.