Season of Sadness
Ithaca seems to be at the center of a large number of Universities from Ivy league to Community Colleges. The "season" always starts early with at least one and sometimes more suicides as children who cannot take the pressure of end of the semester exams jump off one of our many gorges. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around an accident that I responded to this weekend. A 22 year old college senior killed on his way home from a traditional end of the semester bash at one of our more well known universities. As the first EMT on the scene the sights and sounds of that incident will never leave me. We got him to the hospital alive but he died very shortly after that. And now another young man is being charged with manslaughter. I can understand the need to party and "let off steam" after a long academic year but what is the answer to making our children realize that climbing into a car is not the way to end the celebration and that drugs and alcohol don't solve everything and that jumping off a bridge or gorge doesn't solve anything. So much is written about the sadness of family and friends after these things happen. The sadness of the emergency workers is also profound and far reaching. It's an age old question, one I am sure was being asked even when our parents were young. But how do we keep our kids safe? It all just makes me so sad. |
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| Ginny as a first responder you get to actually see what we only read about. You train on how to deal with the medical condition, but dealing with the emotional aspects are far harder than any of the exams.
There's a good chance this was not the young man's first experience with drinking and driving. He had gotten away with it for years and came to believe he was invincible.........actually a common belief of young adults. This country has a horrible drinking and driving attitude. When you look at other countries, the punishment is severe from the very first offense...................no use going on.......just this past weekend the police picked up someone who had mulitple, double digit prior DWIs and had his driver's license taken away over 10 years ago.......and was still out drinking and driving. |
| My son is going through this. He was also suppose to graduate (along with my daugther) this week. Late in February, they found an administrative error when he transferred colleges, which left him on class short (because he tested out of it in his first school, but this school requires it). We really really have had a tough time. He is now dealing with it, and will finish in August instead, but had fallen into a deep depression and ready to drop out of college. And even though my daughter is graduating and very excited about her new life, a few weeks ago she went into a funk facing her "final" finals and realizing that reality was a few weeks away. She, too is now very happy! |
| It is indeed VERY scary when you send your children off to college. And it's not just the college students you worry about. There was an incident at my daughter's school last fall where one freshman was walking back to campus from his brother's off-campus apartment. He had not been drinking but three guys who were "visiting" the local bar came out of that bar drunk and looking for a fight. They punched him down to the cement sidewalk, he hit his head on a concrete porch and died almost instantly.
I know it's normal to feel invincible at that age, but when will they learn?? |
| When will they learn? I don't know...
A few years ago, we moved into the country and all was new to us. We heard about our neighbors just down the road who's daughter was basically in a wheelchair and totally dependent on care of others from a auto accident that had happened shortly before we moved in. She and her friends had been out drining and decided to race down the country road...hit a horse and the horse was killed on impact and she was dearly injuried. Her friends where out drinking again the following week. One of the boys in the high school, had been drinking and had his best friend in the car...the best friend was the town dr's son. The boy was speeding down a twisty road and went off the road into a ditch and the dr's son was killed...he on the other hand walked alway with just some bumps and bruises. The dr's son's death was ruled an accident. 6 mts later, my daughter's best friend was dating the driver of the previous accident...he and his buddy where drinking and she was in the car with them and wasn't drinking...she didn't believe in drinking, anyway, They where, once more speed driving down a dirt road and he rolled the truck...she flew out of the truck and her head hit the cement bridge..she died on contact....the two drunks got out of the truck and walked away...he only went to jail for a short period of time....This happened 16 years ago 10 April. |
| Ginny,
I can't imagine how stressful and heart wrenching your job must be . We need people like you to do those heroic jobs and appreciate you for it. It is terribly sad for all the families and the others that are involved in preventable accidents. Marianne |
| Working as an emergency room nurse I too often saw the pain in parents faces when they had to come to the emergency room only to see their child hooked up to neumerous devices and tubes or worse yet to view a lifeless body. I often wondered if they realized the pain that was caused by their actions if it would make a difference. It indeed takes a toll on the first responders and medical personel involved . We all have families. |
| On our way to my daughter's graduation last night, we passed a bad wreck. A pickup ran a red light and T-boned a sedan. The truck flipped up and over the sedan, landing on its roof. The sedan rolled several times. The driver didn't make it.
That could have been us. That could have been my family or my friends. Decisions made in a moment change lives. |
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