On the Tuesday the 11th of October 80 TY students headed to Letterkenny to the AURA. We listened to an hour and 30min talk along with 1500 other students from different other schools.
The talk started with us watching a video of a crash which was very realistic. Then a guard came on, how spoke to us what its like to be in this situations. The most horrible thing he said that guards have to go through is having to go to the parents house of the teenager how died due to a car crash. He told us that is its very heartbreaking seeing their faces.
We watched more of the video and a fireman came and talked to us about his experiences. He also told us about a time that he was called out to a car crash and there was two passengers in the front seat how were dead and then he seen a little hand in the back of the car. His team worked along with the ambulance to get the little boy out of the car and save him. Sadly the little boy passed away.
We listened to a paramedic and a nurse on their personal experiences of dealing with incidents due to car crash. A mother of a 19-year-old girl also talked to us about the loss of her daughter.
Our final speaker was a man who is now in a wheel chair he has lost all feeling to his lower half of his body, he has lost his left hand due to a car crash he had in 2007. His best friend had died in a car accident the year before and he said it was the most painful thing he went through. the man told us that he was in hospital for 14 months after the accident the first time he was home was 6 months after the accident on the August bank holiday. He said that it did not feel like he was home and it still doesn’t because his family changed the sitting room into a bedroom and what once was a small bedroom was know a bathroom accessable for him. Before 2007 his family never used the front door only on rare occasions, when he arrived home that august his family also had a ram built-in on the front door, he said it felt strange going in that way. He has had an operation every year, some years more than one and they are still on going. What really affected me about his talk was he made us stand up and clap for everyone that took part in organising the road safety talk, when we sat back down he said that he will never get to do what we just did. I felt really made for him that he could not stand up and clap his hands.
Over all it will make me to think of myself and others around me when I start driving in the future.
AOIFE CASSIDY 