Andrew Garces
When thinking about an event in my community that is rarely discussed that holds a lot of meaning, but can be hard to touch upon based on the severity of the situation, one particular one comes to mind. Growing up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey not too much happens. It's a fairly simple town with a good school system, safe neighborhoods, and an overall sense of unity within the town. The moment I’m discussing is one that changed the life for many people involved and even left a lasting impression on me, it’s definitely something hard to talk about, but at the same time I could see the benefits of talking over it to ensure something like that doesn’t happen again or at least people having the understanding of the precautions and possible outcomes
On April 14th, 2019 a couple of young kids attempted to cross a busy highway that runs through the whole town and eventually leads to neighboring Paramus, as the group of kids ran across it passing the middle divider one of them was struck by a Bergen County Sheriff patrol vehicle. It was at night time on a highway so by the time the driver saw the kids crossing it was too late to stop, as you can imagine with the speed limits and being able to react to something so sudden on a route that never sees people run across it was too unexpected to see coming. The young 12 year old kid died instantly due to the impact of the hit in front of his friends on the scene.These kinds of things never happens in Fair Lawn and to me it hit home because it was literally down the street from where I live and I also knew the kid who passed, my everlasting condolences to him and his family.
When talking about this situation I can only imagine it’s even more difficult for those involved, the family, and even the community as a whole. I think this tragedy should be remembered and never forgotten with the ultimate goal for this to never happen again. Life is too precious nowadays and these types of situations really put you into perspective on how it can change instantly. I would never want this to happen to anybody I know ever again. This is a difficult event to commemorate understandably, but as hard as it may be I believe at the end of the day it really can show people and further educate them on what can possibly happen if someone were to do the same thing again. When this first happened I thought to myself “I would never have done something like that growing up, now I definitely will not knowing what can possibly happen“. At the end of the day this was someone who was valued to others and the whole town so I believe it would only benefit future generations to not forget about the dangers of doing something like that and ways to prevent it as well; nowadays as sad as it is to say people tend to forget about stuff like that and some may attempt to even do the same thing again, then what? More tragedy to another town that doesn’t need that on its shoulders.
The best way to commemorate this hard situation is to spread awareness of the event as well as being able to honor the victim with a lighting ceremony. These are always hard for those involved because you want to be able to forget about the past, but I truly believe the strength of those same people to overcome and make it through also have the power to influence others to prevent something like this from happening again. Many schools have public speakers come in to their auditorium and recall their life experiences and I can see this being one of those instances where one of the teens now that was there during the event would be able to touch an audience on a real life situation will leave a lasting impression, on many occasions these types of informative speeches gave me better judgment going forward because it’s coming from someone who went through it and doesn’t want the same thing to repeat itself. A lighting ceremony always shows remembrance to someone and I feel like for something like this to happen to a small town it’s worth the time it takes to come together as a community to mourn and to heal together as time continues on.
A perfect example of how this is done in Fair Lawn throughout the school system is when we had a speaker talk to us about safety during Halloween and the possible risks and dangers that exist for the holiday. To this day it still stuck to me so I know this method works. There was an officer by the name of Mary Ann Collura that served for the Fair Lawn Police department. She was the first female officer in the force for the town and was well respected among her colleagues, one of her numerous achievements was “In 1999, it was Officer Collura’s suggestion that the elementary school children be given glowing light sticks to wear at night when trick-or-treating. Her project has been repeated every year since”. This was during a time where it was dangerous for children at night at times when sometimes they couldn’t be seen by cars etc; so this helped them out a lot when it was needed. She sadly passed while on duty with the force and her memory has been planted by this tradition and also lives on with a statue set up for her at city hall with a memorial service every couple of years as well as people speaking on her behalf and all the good she had done for the town. If they applied this same method toward this tragedy I truly believe it will be a positive light on a dark situation that can only help us all out in life.
Work Cited
Keldy Ortiz, Steve Janoski and Rodrigo Torrejon. “Fair Lawn Boy Struck, Killed by Bergen Sheriff's Office Car While Trying to Cross Route 208.” North Jersey Media Group, NorthJersey, 16 Apr. 2019, https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/fair-lawn/2019/04/14/fair-lawn-nj-boy-struck-and-killed-bergen-county-sheriffs-office-car/3469632002/.
“Po Mary Ann Collura.” Fair Lawn Police Department, https://www.fairlawnpd.com/mac136/.
Comments
Post a Comment