On Monday, July 23, 2007, Michelle Arout, a 17-year-old Tottenville High School student, went out to an Applebee’s Restaurant in Staten Island with a group of friends. It was around 7:30 p.m.

After dinner, the group split up into two cars, and Michelle ended up traveling in the backseat of a 2001 Honda Accord driven by Joseph Donovan, 17. It was now 9 p.m. Five minutes later, Donovan was racing against Anthony Reis, 18, operating a Ford Mustang at speeds of between 80 and 90 mph on Veterans Road West. Donovan lost control of the car and smacked into a metal stanchion blocking a fire hydrant, ripping the Honda apart and ejecting Arout and her boyfriend from the backseat. Her boyfriend survived, but Arout died at Staten Island University South Hospital at 12:28 a.m.

Arout’s story is but one of several tragedies documented in the poignant exhibit, “One Second, Everything Changes,” developed by Dr. Denis Foley, an anthropology professor at the State University of New York Institute of Technology (SUNYIT) in Utica, N.Y. It details the events leading up to the fatal crashes that took the young lives of Arout, Katie Flynn, 7, and Jason Perez, 17, among others.

Foley’s exhibit is available upon request to travel to high schools and community groups in New York City and on Long Island in April, and in the mid-Hudson Valley in May. (See below for more information.) Since 2003, Foley has developed exhibits like this for the Lewis Henry Morgan Institute at SUNYIT. His exhibits are funded by groups such as the Governor’s Traffic Safety Council, New York State Stop DWI Coordinators’ Foundation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), among others. “We try to present their stories in a tasteful, informative way, but so that you still comprehend the horror and tragedy of their accidents,” Foley says.

For example, Foley’s exhibits also describes how Flynn was killed on the early morning of July 2, 2005. A drunken driver heading the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway pummeled into the limousine she and her family had been traveling in after attending her aunt’s wedding. Flynn had just served as her aunt’s flower girl.

The exhibit provides commentary from friends and family of the crash victims, including Flynn’s mother: “Because [the drunken driver] drove 70 mph and mowed us down with a head-on crash, I was left to pick up my most beautiful, loving, first-born, seven-year-old daughter’s head off the floor of the limousine,” Jennifer Flynn said.

Perez’s crash was just as extreme as Arout’s or Flynn’s, although not as widely publicized. On April 24, 2002, the Bronx teenager had led his mother to believe that he was taking the bus to St. Raymond’s High School that morning. However, Perez accepted a ride to school with a newly licensed 18-year-old owner of a 2002 Nissan Altima. The young driver was speeding down the Hutchinson River Parkway at an estimated speed of 85 mph when he lost control and struck a tree. The car split in half, ejecting the unbelted Perez. He died before reaching the hospital; the driver and another teen passenger received minor injuries.

Notably, Foley changed the topic of his exhibit this year to focus on youths killed in horrific—and, sadly, preventable—crashes. Foley says that Arout and Flynn’s cases, in particular, inspired him to add “extreme driving” to his anthropoligical exhibits. “As I examined teenage crashes, I realized that throughout New York State and the metropolitan area there were memorials of young adults killed in extreme driving accidents,” Foley says.

“In Michelle [Arout’s] case, she did not want to drive with the boy that night, and she even called her girlfriend to pick her up,” he continues. “Michelle had so much promise and many dreams. Her story had to be told. I believe that sharing her story with other students puts a real face on a preventable and all-to-common occurrence.”

Previously, Foley’s exhibits focused solely on college students who were killed in alcohol-related crashes. (Foley’s previous exhibit, “Friends: One Day, One Wrong Turn,” and an accompanying film are available to visit college campuses in New York State. It documents an alcohol-related, single-vehicle crash at Colgate University that claimed the lives of four freshmen in November 2000.)

Meanwhile, some families of these victims are trying to make sense out of their painful loss. John and Marie Arout, for example, have been lobbying lawmakers to improve New York’s graduated driver licensing (GDL) laws by banning teens passengers from traveling with their peers and requiring teenagers to have more behind-the-wheel training before obtaining their license. The Arouts point to statistics that show that these improvements to GDL programs—especially banning teen passengers—reduce injuries and fatalies by some 38 percent. “I believe down to my toes that changes will be made,” adds John Arout. “I really believe that God wants us to do something about this.”

Educators, community group leaders and others who would like Dr. Denis Foley’s exhibit to visit their respective school or facility may send a request via e-mail to Dr. Foley at foleyd@sunyit.educ, or they may contact Joanne McGarry or Chris Mistron, of the Nassau County Traffic Safety Board, at 516/571-5032 or send them an e-mail at jmcgarry@nassaucountyny.gov or cmistron@nassaucountyny.gov.