I CAN’T tell you how many fatal crashes I’ve been to. There have been too many, and I don’t like to keep count.
What I can tell you are details of each one.
Strange little things like the colour of the shoes someone was wearing seconds before they were killed in a head-on collision; a football sticker on the back of a motorbike, a small child’s car seat among the wreckage…
These are the things that stay with me, and I’m just a reporter.
I can’t begin to imagine the horrors police and emergency service crews are forced to bear witness to in their everyday lives.
I have seen it, though.
The copper on the verge of a nervous breakdown after telling yet another family their loved one won’t be coming home.
The ambo who, no matter how hard he tries, cannot breathe life back into an injured infant.
Road trauma hurts everyone, not only the direct victims of a crash.
Hours have been spent sitting and talking with grieving families trying to make sense of why their son or daughter died on the side of the road. I will never be able to say it hasn’t affected me. It affects us all.
That’s why, in the lead-up to the Easter holiday period, I am urging people to get on board our #ArriveAlive campaign.
The carnage has to stop, and each and every one of us has a role to play in keeping our roads safe.
So please get involved.
Join our social media campaign and let us know why you want your family to arrive alive.
See our photos online at mandurahmail.com.au or use #ArriveAlive on Twitter and Instagram.
And please stay safe on the roads – especially over Easter.
I don’t want to report on your death.
