AUBURN — Owen Smith asked Edward Little High School juniors Wednesday to share the last text they sent.

One student said her last text was: “I love Philly.”

“Thank you,” another student offered.

“I love you, too, Corey,” a boy said.

“This is how a lot of us communicate,” Smith, regional vice president of AT&T, said during a presentation about the dangers of texting and driving.

The typical adult sends a lot of texts, he said. “I might send 300 a month.”

But teenagers send five times more than adults. That tendency, combined with inexperience behind the wheel, “makes you high-risk,” Smith said.

The top cause of death among teenagers is car crashes, and texting contributes to many deaths.

Nationwide in 2009, more than 5,400 people died in crashes that involved a distracted driver, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two major distractions are cellphone use and texting. Anyone texting and driving is 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash, Smith said.

An AT&T survey showed that 43 percent of teens admit they text and drive and 77 percent of their parents text and drive.

Smith asked the students to participate in an exercise. “Close your eyes,” he said. They closed their eyes for five seconds. Five seconds is the time it takes to send or read a text. “Your eyes are off the road,” their hands off the wheel and their minds not where they should be, he said.

Sending or reading a text at 55 mph “is like driving the length of Walton Field with your eyes closed,” Smith said. “A lot can happen at 55 mph.”

Smith showed a film, “The Last Text,” about four teenagers who were killed or injured or who killed someone because of texting and driving:

* A Missouri state trooper recalls coming onto the crash scene of a teenage girl who had died. “Her face was disfigured,” he says. “Her shoes were lying in the roadway in a pool of blood. Her cap and gown were still in the car. It was a horrific scene, all because of a text.”

* A mother holds a birthday party for her deceased daughter, who would have been turning 19. She and her daughter’s friends cry as they sang “Happy Birthday.”

* A boy cries as he talks about driving and texting as he struck and killed a person on a bicycle.

* A boy with a severe brain injury says that before he crashed, he was able to walk and hold a job.

In the four cases, the texts were, “Yeah,” “LOL,” “Where r u” and “Where r.”

No text is worth dying for, Smith said. He asked that before students start driving, they take steps to ensure that they won’t use their cellphones, that they will turn it off or put it in the glove compartment.

Students said what they saw made an impression.

“Hearing the video changed (my opinion) more than the facts,” said Evan Mancini, 17. “Hearing the parents and friends.” Mancini said he drives but doesn’t text. “I do make phone calls, though.”

Emily Hamel, 16, and Brandon Binette, 17, said they have driven and texted before. “I’m pretty sure everyone has,” he said. “You never really think about it, but the five seconds you’re just looking down” is like closing your eyes to the road. After seeing what could happen, both said they don’t plan to text and drive.

Michael Cote, 16, was one of several who signed a pledge not to text and drive. He knows plenty of people who do. Texting behind the wheel isn’t worth “risking your life,” Cote said. He said he hoped Wednesday’s presentation spread awareness.

“It’s definitely a growing problem.”

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Watch AT&T’s video, “The Last Text.”