Shattered Lives of Montgomery Texas
Mike Valdez worked closely with Gary Parker, the founder of Quanah Productions, as Gary put together film crews to shoot the busy reenactment scenes, following multiple story lines as participating students were taken away, to the County Jail, or to the regional hospital where they acted out trauma scenes with the ER staff acted out authentically real efforts to save the students’ lives. These scenes were often so real, parents who were standing by their side, often broke down in tears.
The Shattered Lives program began in 1999, when Mike Valdez began reaching out to local high schools in Montgomery County, to address drinking and driving among teenagers, who are at high risk for being involved in these wrecks. Mike coordinated the effort which involved the teachers, students, and first responders who prepared the scene with wrecked cars, staging them for the live scenes, where they extracted teenagers from the mangled wrecks and provided on the spot triage, before sending them off in ambulances. Makeup specialists provided gruesome injuries with movie like effects, making these scenes so frightening, many of the students watching broke down in tears as they watched their friends make the risks of drinking and driving all too real.
After the success of that first program, held at Willis High School, in Willis, Texas, Mike continued to build the program, elicit the aid of not only local law enforcement, but also the County courts, local law enforcement, the Texas Department of Safety, and the hospital district. Under his leadership, the program grew substantially, and in 2003, Mike reached out to Quanah Productions, to film the program in action.
When Mike hired Gary, he had only one special request. He asked that these films be edited overnight, so they could be shown in the high schools the next day. Gary didn’t hesitate to accept the challenge, staying up all night to get the job done. Mike was equally committed, spending many nights helping Gary in the edit suite, completing the films in time for their next day premier. The impact on the families, when the films were shown in school, proved the long days of shooting and the all-night editing sessions were well worth the effort.
Soon, high schools all over Montgomery County were requesting that they too be included in the Shattered lives program. Over the years, Mike and Gary have produced over one hundred films at every high school in Montgomery County. Over half a million people, including teachers, students, and their families, have watched a Shattered Lives video over the more than twenty years the program has been active.
Mike Valdez was inspired to create the program by his work as a district attorney, working in Montgomery County where he saw first-hand, the consequences of these tragic accidents, taking away the lives of many of the children who live here, and leaving many more, seriously, or permanently injured. And the drunk teenage drivers who survived these accidents have had to deal with long prison sentences that postponed their future lives for many years.
Mike served as a district attorney for nine years, before going into private practice. In 2016 he ensured the continuation of the program he started by founding the Shattered Lives of Montgomery County Foundation, which is still active today. Mike is Chairman of the Board.
