GRANT High School students were yesterday motivated to become responsible road users after taking part in the Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) Road Awareness Program (RAP).
The group of Year 11 students spent the morning participating in the program which has been visiting various schools throughout the region this week.
Aiming to empower students and make them safer drivers, the group was presented with confronting and emotionally powerful stories, facts and real life car crash footage by MFS station officer and RAP coordinator Brad Ryan.
“We want to inspire and motivate you to be the best you can be on and around our roads in the hope that you can keep yourself and your mates safe,” he told the group of students.
“What I hope today is what you see might change some of your behaviour and hopefully you will become a responsible road user.”
Mr Ryan explained throughout the session that it is important to understand the consequences of road users’ actions and lack of action in ensuring safety on the road.
“An accident is unavoidable whereas in a crash someone is always responsible,” he said.
“If I am at the fire station and the lights come on and the bell sounds and I’m going to an incident where cars are involved, 99pc of the time it is a crash.”
While confronting and graphic, the program made students think about how they behave on the road, especially after hearing from road crash survivor and guest speaker Yudhi Moham-Ram.
“I guess today you were expecting to see someone in a wheelchair or someone with missing limbs as a crash survivor, but don’t let my lack of injuries fool you,” he said.
“I am a father, a husband, a brother, a son and Matthew who was a P-plater ran a stop sign and t-boned me while I was on my motorcycle, throwing me 25 metres – I was in a coma for 46 days and had a 10pc chance of survival.
“It changed my life and my family’s life forever.”
Prior to the crash, Mr Moham-Ram was living a great life with his wife and daughter, working a full-time job and enjoying hobbies such as hiking and riding his motorcycle.
But since that terrible and frightening day things have not been the same.
“Both of my legs were broken, my right wrist was crushed, all of my ribs on the left side of my body were broken, my left collar bone was broken, all my internal organs were bruised and I had reduced lung capacity,” he said.
“I had to learn to eat again, how to go to the toilet and how to walk and in a very short space of time I had 450 physiotherapy visits.
“So far I have had four voice box re-builds and two cyst removals from my voice box.”
Sharing his story through RAP, Mr Moham-Ram said he wants to make sure young people are making the right decisions on the road.
“I want to save everyone’s life in this room, including your family members, because I don’t want you or your families to go through the same amount of pain that myself and my family have to go through every single day,” he said.
“We need to look after each other.”
Touched by Mr Moham-Ram’s story and the information shown throughout the session, student Cody Lewis said she now understands how everyone plays a part in helping to reduce the number of car crashes throughout the country.
“It was very eye opening and makes you realise the impact we all have on road safety, from passengers to pedestrians and drivers,” she said.
Mr Ryan and Mr Moham-Ram also visited St Martins Lutheran College, Tenison Woods College and Mount Gambier High School throughout the week with RAP.
