Janet Kennedy Kiefer

Screaming, crying, twisted metal, blaring sirens blast the otherwise quiet of the fall morning air. A new mother and father are out for the morning walk with their newborn daughter and their dog. In a split second of poor judgement the nondescript text is meaningless as baby Gabrielle lays screaming in a ditch 15 feet from her stroller. Her mother lays bleeding in the street thrown 30 feet when she was struck by the distracted texting twenty something man in a Toyota Tundra. The dog is impelled with metal and this poor father, in shock, is struck by a light pole that crushes his legs.

The six am phone call leaves me stunned and in shock. The new mother is my daughter! It is her family that has suffered this trauma! Chaos best describes the next several hours that turn into a blur of days as my husband and I speed to get to the hospital and we scramble to locate our daughter, grand daughter and son-in-law.

Panic is my memory. It is hard to breath and tears burn in the corners of my eyes as I view the bruised, broken bodies of my precious family. I send for the Priest to administer the Last Rights to the littlest angel Gabrielle, and her mother, Amy. Amy laid in the ICU bed in a coma with tubes helping her to breath. She lays there swollen, bloody, and unnaturally still. Her skull is fractured in 3 places. Her eardrums are shattered. My heart is breaking there is a heaviness in my chest and I find it near impossible to breath.

This scene, this suffering, this life altering event did not need to happen. Please put your phones away when you are driving!