Dear Congressman,
While scanning my newsreader, netvibes, I came across the following story from the Northern Kentucky Times,
Woman dies after car hits deer.
A 30-year-old driver was killed Saturday night when she struck a deer on U.S. 25 in Corinth.
Kentucky State Police said Trisha Sullivan of Corinth was driving a 2002 Toyota south when she hit the deer in the road.She was pronounced dead at the scene. Two juvenile passengers weren’t injured. Alcohol is not believed to be a factor.
The crash was reported at about 8:17 p.m.
A couple of things here. It occurred to me that whoever wrote this story was not at the scene. In fact, based on the language used and the curt nature of the article, I would venture to say that this was written word for word from the police report that was filed after the incident. It contains all the generic factual statements that are the non-committal statement of facts that all officers are taught to use to describe events in a police report.
The one that is incorrect however, is the fourth sentence in the story. I would venture to guess that the two uni-sex juveniles in the car, were most likely related to Ms. Sullivan and while demonstrating no physical injuries, are actually extremely injured by the accident, and have a high probability of developing a form of post traumatic stress disorder after witnessing the death of a close relative. Whereas alcohol was not deemed a factor in the crash, it will most likely become a factor in the life of the two uninjured juveniles at some point.
A little blip in newsprint will be forgotten by most within an hour of reading it. It will be a lifetime for the uninjured.
I only say this to point out that, at a minimum, the reporter who filed this story had a moral obligation to make a phone call or two to provide some "color" in regards to Ms. Sullivan and her two juveniles. This story doesn't have the glamor of a Middle-Eastern revolution or an Asian disaster, but it is a mini-tragedy in itself, and deserved more than this.
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