
Name: Amelia Turner
From: Wise, Virginia
Votes: 0
Amelia
Turner
1
September 2019
Central
High School
Wise,
Virginia
“Two
Lives, One Facebook Post”
On
July 21st, 2015, a young female lay in the backseat while a
middle-aged man sat unresponsive in the driver’s seat. The two were
headed southbound on an intersection of U.S. Highway 10 and Sherburne
County Road 11, Minnesota. The bodies would be identified as Charles
Mauer and his ten-year-old daughter.
A
father and daughter, returning from a trip to the library, were
headed back to the home they shared with his wife and the mother of
their child. In the back seat sat a worriless young girl with her
entire life ahead of her. A life full of coloring, softball games,
swim meets, pool parties, homecoming dances, graduation, and so much
more. As their simple day progressed, the father and daughter had no
idea tragedy would soon strike. Both Charles and his daughter would
never make it home, instead, their car would be smashed to
smithereens, and they would die immediately. The cause, you may ask?
A seventeen-year-old driver who ran a red light while making a post
to facebook.
All
too often we hear of gut-wrenching stories like the tragic death of
Charles Mauer and his young daughter. Stories that make us analyze
every aspect of how a person’s mind works the way it does. We must
remind our youth of these stories, we must remind them of the
unavoidable consequences, the life-changing moments that can happen
in the blink of an eye–or sending a simple text. The fact this could
have been prevented had the driver not been texting, is why we must
remember and remind. Imagine our own life being taken away from us,
ripped from the palm of our hands because we needed to post on
Snapchat. We needed to text our best friend back. We needed to check
the score of that big game we missed. The fact is, we do not need to.
We will never need to do anything other than drive the car. Think
about the tears that our mother will shed, the years of guilt our
family will endure. The grief that our friends and family will
succumb to because we ‘needed’ to be on our phone. Do not do that
to them, do not risk it. But most importantly; we should not do that
to ourselves.
This
is an epidemic, a worldwide plague of carelessness. We have become so
obsessed with cell phones that we are are willing to literally kill
or be killed. In reality, the pain that Charles Mauer’s wife felt
for the loss of her entire family is similar, in many ways, to the
pain that the 17-year-old driver who perpetrated the accident will be
left with. Imagine the guilt that transpires if you were to wipe out
an entire family with one facebook post. Something so easily
preventable.