Heartsick and Determined

We are not meant to bury our young.

This is the painful reality that hit home this week for the family of Bryce Nelson, a Gulf County teen who died on Monday from injuries sustained in an automobile accident a little more than one week prior.

The death of any young person seems especially cruel, but when you know the family, when his father is as well-known and respected as Marshall Nelson is, his mother, Melody, is a well-known and respected teacher, a pain that is numbing becomes shooting.

Marshall Nelson is a good man, the county’s emergency manager, a jovial and calm voice of reason in the event of emergencies, particularly natural disasters, in this county.

In the spectrum of government employees, he earns his paycheck, and does it with aplomb and a grace that is not often seen. He is an asset to the county; it almost seems that his pain is our pain.

But it is not, it is one he and his family must shoulder alone and understand unlike the vast majority of us.

Just as a veteran can spot and find immediate common ground with another veteran, a parent who has lost a child belongs to a group apart, the members only those who have felt that unfathomable pain, grappling to stay afloat, who have cried and lost sleep wondering what they could have done, did they tell their child they were loved.

Whose members become all too familiar with the word “why?”

So the Sheriff’s Office should be applauded for applying grant funds in an effort to divert any more parents to the group, to avert any more tragedy, any more heartbreak.

The Sheriff’s Office, through a Florida Department of Transportation grant, has formed the outline of a program to address teen driving.

Particularly, some of the reasons behind the alarming numbers we see too often in the media and too often hit home, as they did this week.

Research is overwhelming in finding that teens are significantly more likely to have an accident while their attention is diverted from driving, whether on a cell phone, or recently while texting.

While using a cell phone, an individual’s attention to driving and ability to react to an emergency situation is equal to that of someone who is legally drunk in the state of Florida.

For an idea on the impacts of texting and driving, just log on to a computer and go to http://ut.zerofatalities.com/texting.php for a fine video of how texting and driving do not mix.

Research also shows the inexperience of younger drivers. They are overwhelmingly likely to be involved in accidents in which over-correction – as with Bryce Nelson – is a factor.

Simply, teens do not have the experience behind the wheels that an older and more veteran driver might have.

As Deputy Larry Dickey stated recently, “Sometimes they don’t realize they are driving a 9,000 pound bullet.”

So the Sheriff’s Office is trying to address the problem of teens, driving and fatalities. Be mindful, Gulf County has lost more than a half dozen teens in driving accidents in the county in a similar number of years.

And one is too many.

The Sheriff’s Office in January hopes to begin a two-pronged driving course for teens, one targeted at youngsters before they receive their license, another once they have their learner’s permit.

The emphasis will be on making youngsters comfortable with a vehicle, along with an understanding of the potential damage a vehicle made of steel can make moving even 10 mph.

Also, make the teens better defensive drivers, more aware of surroundings, unwilling to become distracted by a cell phone or text message or Tweet.

Meanwhile, the sheriff is reviving the D.A.R.E. programs at each school, addressing, at least in part, studies which have shown that young people in Gulf County have a problem with binge drinking, drinking in general and tobacco.

The latter is a personal decision; the former have impacts for others.

The circumstances of Bryce Nelson’s tragic passing are not as important as the loss of young life of promise and hope.

We, as a community, a county, a country, do not have enough of that resource to see it lost in avoidably horrific ways.

The news of Bryce Nelson’s death, the news of what his family, what a friend to so many like Marshall Nelson, will face in the days, months and years ahead to heal broken hearts, was devastating, but the devastation of this fine family can be turned into a lesson to try to ensure that no family suffers the same.

The sheriff is showing determination in pursuing grants and establishing programs tailored to try to address the concern of so many parents about their children and driving.

The community, especially parents and their children, should get behind these efforts. We are losing too many young people to other causes, the economy, lack of jobs and opportunity.

As a community we can not afford losses of the sort that were suffered this week.