The Altoona Mirror
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Altoona, PA 16602
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By Allison Bourg

Staff Writer                              March 17, 2006

BEDFORD, PA — A teenage boy writhes on the pavement while a state policeman jerks his arms behind his back, handcuffing his wrists.

Kicking and screaming, the youth — who just broke into a Pontiac Grand Prix — tried to wrestle his way out of the cop’s grip.

"We’ll be here all night," Trooper Steve Lucia told the teen as they struggled for about five minutes. "You’re already going to jail now for resisting arrest."

But that wasn’t the only thing the boy was going to jail for. He also was caught clutching a bag of heroin.

Police hauled the young addict into Bedford County Jail to get booked and fingerprinted, routine procedure for most arrests. This drug bust was different, though.

About 20 teens watched the drama unfold Thursday at the local lockup, where officials staged a Reality Tour to illustrate the dangers of drug addiction.

The tour, created by Pittsburgh-area drug prevention advocates in 2003, follows the fate of a teenaged heroin addict, from his arrest to his time in prison to his eventual overdose and funeral.

"There’s a little bit of drama that we put on here, but this is the life of a heroin addict," said District Attorney William Higgins, who helped guide the tour. "We see this all the time."

Bedford High School senior Rhett Wolford played the drug-addled teen, whose taped voiceovers told the audience that he was "just like them."

"Man, you’d think I was robbing a bank or something," the youth said in the booking room before heading to his cell. "I wasn’t going to do drugs — I knew better. Who wants to mess up their life like that?"

But then he experimented with alcohol, smoked some marijuana and finally tried heroin at a party.

"After that night, all I could think of was my next high, and soon I was doing it so I wouldn’t get sick," he said.

After the tour, Wolford showed off some cuts on his knee, the result of his phony altercation with the police officer.

"Hopefully kids will see the reality of this," Wolford, 17, said.

Officials showed teens and their parents the jail in between tour episodes. The crowd got an up-close look at the facilities, including the medical room, where addicts suffering from withdrawal go for treatment.

"It’s hard to get the feel of what it’s like to be incarcerated just by walking through," Warden Brian Clark said. "When you see someone vomiting on the floor and jerking uncontrollably — it’s an unreal scene."

The last scene in the tour showed Wolford on a hospital bed, fighting for his life after an overdose. He lost.

"There’s no pulse," said one of the nurses who tried to revive him.

The boy’s parents, played by Annette Godissart and Brooke Leppert, rushed into the room then, with a hysterical Godissart shaking one of the nurses.

The final scene was the teenager’s funeral, where his parents wondered aloud what happened to their son’s bright future.

It’s an all-too-common scenario at UPMC Bedford Memorial, said Godissart, a hospital administrator.

"I know our nurses said that if this prevents one kid’s overdose, it’s worth it," she said. "They tell me they see this more than they want to."

Mirror Staff Writer Allison Bourg is at 946-7520 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .