Admit it To Quit It: End Distracted Driving Essay Contest

Admit it To Quit It: End Distracted Driving Essay Contest

One of the most distracting things that happens to me while I am driving is hearing my phone peep because of a text message. I do not answer my phone nor do I text while driving. My parents have been in a number of car accidents and none of them were due to being distracted by their phones, ironically. I see what damage and injuries they sustained and that was just ordinary driving, no distractions. My mom has totaled two vehicles and neither accident was her fault nor was she distracted if anything she tried to avoid the accidents but there is only so much you can do without causing further harm.

Witnessing what my parents have been has really been an eye opener for me and my siblings. We do not answer our phones while driving. Even the radio can be distracting, if the commercials are too loud or a song comes on that I absolutely do not like then my first reaction is to change the channel, that would required me taking my eyes off of the road and not paying attention to what is going on around me. As we all know, it only takes one second for a minor or more serious accident to happen. With the increasing traffic in South Florida, distractions are all around a driver and to add the additional pressure of the radio and cell phone is sometimes a lot to bare. You just have to ignore both!

We have new drivers and the Senior citizen drivers in South Florida, both of which are challenging to drive among them. You have too keep focused and concentrate on the road and your surroundings. Life is so short and there is so much to life for, I am just beginning my life and am looking forward to movie to Florida State University. I would not want to jeopardize my future nor anyone else’s by being self-absorbed or careless with my driving. My future is bright and I do not want to challenge it. I want to continue to strive to be the best driver, student and person that I can be. My goal is to become a Pediatric Surgeon and being conscientious and observant are required for this profession so I take my driving skills very seriously.

Finally, the last achievement resolved all of my worries and motivated me to work harder every day. My project is known as NICU Milestones. For my project, I created and implemented cheerful sticker designs placed onto Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) incubators to provide the families with hope for their newborn child. These stickers are colorful and portray positive messages that track the baby’s progress, such as “my first bath,” “my first bottle feed,” “I love my parents,” etc. The project lies close to my heart because my brother was born ten weeks early, and my mother always says how it was the most depressing time of her life. She felt as if it was all her fault, and all she wanted to do was hold her child but could not because he was on life support. She says if there was one thing she could have wished for during this time, it was hope. So, beginning my project, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. With feedback from parents who were the first to experience this project, I can proudly say it was a huge success. Families would tell me stories of how the baby would smile at the stickers and point to them, as well as the stickers would show the progress of the baby’s growth which would remind parents of how it was only going up from where they were.

I have volunteered over 200 hours at the West Boca Medical Center (WBMC) which is where I initiated and created my project. I have created beautiful bright thoughtful stickers for each of the NICU patients’ incubators. The babies love to view the vibrant beautiful bright colors. The parents have a positive viewing on how well their babies are doing. Even if a patient is not progressing as they should, the sticker provides some positivity to the family. This project was a little difficult to initiate, the idea and creating the stickers was the easy part, the difficult part was working with WBMC staff, the volunteer coordinator and the NICU nurses. I had to outline my ideas and present them to my volunteer coordinator, Laura Albertini. After we reviewed my project together, I then presented the project to the NICU nurses who loved and supported the idea. After that Laura and I presented my project to the medical staff for approval. Due to the Privacy Act, there are many things that cannot be shared with a patient or their family so I had to be careful with displaying too much on the stickers and that’s why they only reflect daily living activities and not in-dept patient privacy statements.

As part of my volunteer time, I would create the stickers, laminate them and give to the NICU nurses to display on the patient’s incubator or crib. This has been a very personal rewarding project. My mother is very proud that I have created this idea and implemented it, she only wished there was some of this refreshing positivity when my brother was a patient in NICU. There are many different ways to help our community, some are large and out in the community others, like mine are more private and effecting only a portion of the community. Each person makes us a community, no matter how big or small the project is, it benefits the community. I am so happy to provide some hopefulness and cheer to patients and their parents with my NICU Milestone Project.