It has come to this bloggers attention that 3000 children in Wiltshire are going to be shown graphic videos and listen to harrowing accounts of road traffic incidents to teach them that bad things happen if they don't follow the rules of the road.
Here some stats: 30 million plus drivers in the UK
3000-4000 deaths on the UK roads each year
400-600 people out of the figure above die because of drink driving
I have an infinite amount of respect for the fire and rescue services and for the trauma teams that work at the hospitals having worked in the field of trauma both physical and psychological for over 25 years. I have experienced first hand both in and out of an operating theatre exactly what this entails. I have seen everything from bomb victims to road traffic casualties, from domestic violence to falls from trees. And as a youngster I was a volunteer in the mountain rescue so I have witnessed some very harrowing scenes. I know what these fine people experience.
The problem is showing it in graphic detail in the classroom just does not work. There is no emotional connection in the same way. Especially in a world where media from all genre shows us violence, death, destruction and trauma. And the irony is that the psychological mechanisms that allow the emergency services to carry on their work professionally are de facto the same ones that anaethetise young people's minds from the impact of such shocking scenes. And if people know they are going to be shocked they prepare for it.
Take the case of Ben Parkinson, Britain's most injured survivor of the Afghan War. His story only made the inside pages of the newspapers on Sunday and Monday of this week yet the picture of Michael Jackson's dead body was on the front of the Sun this morning.
Ben Parkinson like many other veterans suffered horrendous physical trauma and no doubt has suffered or will suffer psychological trauma along with that just as many of his comrades have done, will do or are doing so now. It is a specific type of trauma which for many years was completely removed from the medical world because it was politically sensitive and undermining to morale. It didn't exist. Shell shock saw hundreds of men shot for cowardice in World War 1. In World War 2 they called in LMF (Lack of Moral Fibre). By the time of the Falklands War and after the woeful experience of the Vietnam Veterans in the United States they were calling it PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). We now know it does. I know it does for I suffered very badly and still have difficulties due to a serious road traffic collision that happened to me.
As a result of my own experience and thanks largely to time I spent in sessions, with Professor Gordon Turnbull, to whom I am eternally grateful, I have studied psychology in depth and particular the psychology of trauma.
I am vehemently opposed to the death penalty because as a child I saw a television programme which although a drama was actually very educational. It followed a reporter who wanted to know what it would be like to be on death row. It was arranged that he become a prisoner by being convicted of a capital crime and only the Warden, the newspaper editor, the Chief of Police and the presiding Judge knew the truth. As his execution date drew closer the four people who knew the reality were replaced by four who all insisted that this reporter was lawfully sentenced and execution would take place. On the day of his execution he was led to the electric chair and strapped in and when the switch was thrown instead of the chair sparking to life the lights in the execution chamber came on. Then the original Judge asked the reporter how it felt being on death row after expressing that all the people who you could now see in the shot were opposed to the death penalty. There was no response so the reporters blindfold was removed to show a single tear running down his cheek. He had died of a heart attack brought on by psychological trauma.
And interestingly enough returning to Ben Parkinson here is a young man with great dignity who has now effectively been castigated by those whom he served with passion and pride. Every soldier knows that they may face death on the battlefield but are we prepared for it? Is this why so many ex servicemen and women find it difficult to return to civvy street and have never ending battles with domestic violence, alcohol abuse and drug addiction?
We have a duty to fight for Ben and his colleagues, we have a duty to help them for the service they have given to us yet our moral guardians the media only serve to push him to the inside pages for the lack of shock value. Yet it is shocking the way in which he is being treated and we need to stand up and be counted just as they did.
We must educate our children, we must educate our people. We must give them a positive emotional connection so as to deter negative things from happening. We must be strong and we need to learn how to care in a positive way.
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