Michelle DuBarry
@DuBarryPie
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Writer of grants and occasional essays. Healthcare voter. Safe streets advocate. Union member. ✍️ in @NYtimes @BostonGlobe @Oregonian @HighCountryNews + more
Portland, OR
Joined July 2010
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My essay in
@TheSunMagazine
, about attending a grief retreat in the desert, is a love letter to the parents we met there and all our beautiful kids. It's also a love letter to my friends and a dog named Shitter.
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In 2010, I had good union health insurance. Obamacare was the law of the land. In November that yr my 1yo son was struck by a careless driver in a crosswalk. After two surgeries and a night in intensive care, he died.
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Interesting how Portland police seem to have an endless supply of tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and riot gear yet my kids have literally never had a functioning drinking fountain at their school 🤔
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I believe change is coming. I am ready to fight for other families, for
#MedicareForAll
, and to elect
@BernieSanders
president. Sending solidarity and love to all who are suffering under this awful system. ❤️👊
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(Side Note: It took me 8 yrs but in 2019 I initiated and passed a bill making this practice illegal in OR. It remains legal in many states.)
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Every one of us lives in a body that is going to fail. Sometimes it happens suddenly, catastrophically. Do you want to fight with insurers when this happens? Do you want to sort through a mountain of bills when you lose someone you love, when your grief is raw?
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There is no compromise on healthcare that doesn't leave millions of people unacceptably vulnerable to corporations trying to profit from sick and injured people.
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Through all this, my husband and I both were suffering from PTSD. We had jobs, a mortgage. All of it hung in the balance. In a humane system, we could grieve without having to navigate an insurance juggernaut, without worrying about being thrust into debt and poverty.
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Have you ever had to call around to find a doctor that can handle your specific insurance situation? Have you done it in the days after your toddler has died, when you haven't even figured out a way to talk about it, when your husband is injured and urgently needs a Rx refill?
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Despite Obamacare and "good" union insurance, we were nearly bankrupted by a 27-hour hospital stay.
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Then our health ins. co. came after our pain and suffering settlement. They demanded reimbursement for the $175K they were out. Turns out they were legally entitled to do that. In an instant, our modest settlement - meant to compensate for the loss of our son - was reduced to $0
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Within a week of his death, before we had even received a bill, the hospital put a lien on our house to make sure we wouldn't skip out on the PICU bill.
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My husband who was also injured in the crash, was refused treatment by his primary care doc b/c she didn't accept payment from auto insurance and his health insurer wouldn't pay til we exhausted our auto insurance.
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Before we knew the outcome, I sat at his bedside, his tiny stitched-together body hooked to a million incessantly beeping machines, straining to recall what our deductibles were. I worried I wouldn't be able to keep working during what could be a long hospital stay.
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We ended up with around $5K in out-of-pocket expenses and our health insurer paid $175K. Eventually, we'd receive a settlement from the at-fault driver. For a minute, we thought we might be OK financially.
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I googled FMLA and learned I wouldn't qualify b/c I hadn't been at my job for a year. If I lost my job we would both be without insurance. Without my income, there was no way we could afford $1K/month COBRA.
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To ppl shouting about iPhones in the replies, I’d like to tell you about my 1yo son who is represented in this chart, who was crossing with his dad in a marked crosswalk, and never owned a phone. He died because of intersection design that prioritized cars and not people.
New report finds that over 8,000 pedestrians were killed on US roadways in 2022.
Jimmy Carter was president the last time that happened.
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My brother-in-law (an
@IBEW
member) won the night with his non-union electrician costume 😂
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If you've made it through this thread I have 3 requests: 1) Learn to pronounce Seamus "Shay-mus" 2) Think of Seamus DuBarry the next time you see the moon (he loved the moon), and 3) Consider what a car can do to a human body, and design cities/drive accordingly. 8/8
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My son Seamus died ten years ago today. This is the last photo of him - snapped on a flip phone by my husband at our neighborhood park, 2 hrs before they were struck by a careless driver in a crosswalk. He sent it w/ a text that said, "He knows 'uphill' and 'downhill' now!" 1/8
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Thank you for all the lovely tweets! Seamus was born on Christmas day 2008. He called butterflies "buddy buddies." He demanded that we take him outside each night to see the moon. Let's pass
#MedicareForAll
so that his brother and sister (and all of us!) can have healthcare.
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@sarahradz_
When you lose a child it no longer makes sense to organize your life according to linear time. Time spreads out in all directions. You are here; you already dead.
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I clicked because my son was also named Seamus and then I realized he is talking about my Seamus ❤️
“The driver who killed two-year-old Seamus had just $100,000 of liability coverage per victim. The hospital charged the couple’s insurance $180,000. Before the DuBarrys saw a penny, their health and car insurers claimed the entire amount.” 🚘💸
@dlknowles
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@InternetHippo
Second. My toddler son died suddenly and within days the hospital put a lien on our house to make sure we didn’t skip out on the PICU bill. (Hope you are OK btw I enjoy your tweets.)
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"Misapplication of Pedals" is what police called it when my toddler was killed by a driver who made this same mistake. It's considered a traffic violation, so they gave him a ticket 🙃
Dramatic morning at the Whole Foods in Tenleytown DC. One police officer I interviewed said, laconically, ‘Brakes and gas are very different pedals.’ No one was hurt, so far as I can tell.
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Losing a child is very clarifying. One thing it taught me is that I do not need to have nuanced opinions on U.S. foreign policy. "Stop killing kids" is a serious and valid position and one worth fighting for.
"Fuck off. Fuck off 6 times...I'm not afraid of those fucking clowns. I will do the right thing. I will do the right thing for those children in Gaza."
@robdelaney
talks to me about how the tragic death of his baby son drives his Gaza activism.
Full show:
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The ACA is 10 yrs old. Since it passed, the out-of-pocket max on my plan has gone from $4,500 to $24,500. While some parts of ACA are good (Medicaid expansion, pre-ex conditions protections), the part where private insurers take all your $$ and deny care is bad.
#MedicareForAll
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Cars are the
#1
killer of children in the U.S. - I wish we could muster more outrage at this fact. Simple changes could save so many lives. The driver who killed Seamus was ticketed and fined, but retained his driving privileges. The intersection remains a literal death trap. 7/8
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"some negative effects" include my 22-month-old son being struck in a crosswalk, spending a night in intensive care, dying, followed by $180,000 in medical bills and a lifetime of PTSD. Totally worth it though.
It’s crazy how icy criticism of self-driving cars comes down to “but cars are bad.” It’s obviously true that cars have some negative effects but they are also very useful. And also AVs have the potential to mitigate most of the downsides of mass car usage.
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Reading about the two toddlers killed by drivers in Chicago I am reminded once again what a violent, inhospitable world we have built for children. One scooting, one riding on the back of mom’s bike - every child is entitled to these simple joys.
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Had no choice but to murder the man who thought it was cute/funny to rev his truck engine while he was stopped and I was crossing in front of him with 4 kids in tow. I left his severed head on a spike near the playground as a warning to others. ☺️
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My son Seamus died 11 years ago today, killed by a careless driver on a walk home from the grocery store with his dad. This is a picture of us on Halloween, 8 days before the crash.
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It's always striking how many people I meet in safe streets advocacy are (like me) grieving parents of really little kids who were killed by drivers. Every single one of us is desperate to prevent this from happening to someone else, but we're so often shouting into a void.
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Going to remember this next time they tell me there’s no money to fix the intersection where my 1yo son was killed.
Window into a highway mega-project: ODOT spent $2.7 million on a consultant to sell a $1.9 billion freeway project to Portland's Black community. Meanwhile that consultant picked a fight with the city's largest Black civil rights organization.
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POTUS zooming around in a giant SUV, saying "I'm a car guy!" when his wife and baby daughter were killed in a crash is pretty deranged, IMO
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If you follow me b/c of healthcare, please know the reason my son died is b/c we had to cross 6 lanes of traffic to get groceries 2 blocks away; infrastructure prioritizes cars, and there is basically no punishment for killing ppl w/ them. Health insurance was secondary trauma.
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As the mom of a child killed by a careless driver, who daily walks & bikes with my living children in front of trucks whose hoods are taller than their 2nd grader heads, I just want to say these machines are an absolute menace and the companies who make them are evil.
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@mallisonKATU
Megan, as the mom of a child killed by a driver nine years ago I can tell you the color of the boys' clothing is not relevant and mentioning it here only adds pain and confusion to those most affected by the tragedy.
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@mollymcnearney
👏👏👏Parents of sick kids are de facto experts in how our healthcare system fails families
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BLM protesters shake a fence and the Portland Police break out the tear gas and beat the shit out of everyone in sight. Fascists drive monster trucks through crowded crosswalks and Portland Police shrug. 🤔
Driving through crowds and macing out of vehicles at SW 4th and Washington.
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Not to say something nice about the police but I just saw the most amazing thing
A left-turning driver nearly hit a man in a crosswalk, then honked at him 😡
Driver kept going, with🖕out the window, and immediately got pulled over
🙌 😊 🤩
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My husband, riding his bike to get dinner, called to tell me an OWL grabbed his hat off his head, then dropped it on the sidewalk. He FaceTimed me 2 minutes later and said “It happened again!” then showed me the culprit. Look at this little stinker
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Any time I tweet about my child getting killed by a car people argue with me and sometimes each other about banning cars. But you don't have to ban cars to protect children from being killed by them.
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Joe Biden and I both lost little kids in car crashes.
I wrote for the
@BostonGlobe
about why
@POTUS
and
@SecretaryPete
should make safe streets a priority in their new administration.
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Hey,
@PortlandPolice
my son was killed in a Portland crosswalk so it’s upsetting to see your guys parked illegally, blocking sight lines in this busy crosswalk while they are in Starbucks.
They have been here for 20+ min, plenty of legal parking spots 1 block away.
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I got the call around 11am. I remember sprinting through the parking lot to the ER in a blind panic. Seeing people standing in line, calmly filling out paperwork, I burst through a set of double doors marked "do not enter" and a nurse said, "This must be mom." 2/8
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Bernie gets it. He always has.
#NotMeUs
This thread shows why we cannot maintain the status quo of our profit-driven health care system.
Even "good" insurance doesn't protect Americans from the endless greed of private health insurance companies.
We must end this inhumanity and pass Medicare for All.
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Eric erased our phone numbers on the dry-erase board and wrote "Bye bye buddy." Leaving the hospital, my brother drove and we had to take the car seat out to make room. I remember it rolling around the back of our Subaru when he turned, Cheerios crunching underfoot. 6/8
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We roamed the halls for hours, through 2 surgeries, until he was admitted to PICU where updates became more grim as the night wore on. Then morning, more tests, and the words, spoken so calmly: "Time of death, 1:25." I remember a chime, and a surgeon sobbing at his bedside. 5/8
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I wrote about marriage, friendship and grief for The New York Times.
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My son was killed by a driver in a crosswalk, in his stroller. My 10yo twins are desperate for independence, exhilarated to go places on their own. I try to let them; I'm so proud when they do, but the stress is taking years off my life.
What if we didn't have to live like this?
“What would happen if communities were safe enough for kids to travel on their own?” That's my question, and thanks to
@AnnaZivarts
,
@CoachBalto
,
@DrNurseDNP
,
@darbysaxbe
, and
@KMRalph
for helping me figure it out.
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My family has a tradition of stopping at Plymouth Rock and making an absolute scene, pretending to be overwhelmed with emotion. This is us in 2016.
The worst attraction in every state (according to my IG followers)
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A crowd of doctors and nurses gathered outside Seamus's room, watching whatever was happening inside, but they wouldn't let me see him. Eric was incoherent, wrapped in bloody bandages, deep in shock. A social worker kept telling me to sit down, drink water. 3/8
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Finally they rolled Seamus down the hall for a CT scan. He was wearing a diaper and had no visible injuries. I pressed his hand to my cheek in between scans and watched the doctors receiving images on computers, searching for signs of relief. A nurse held back tears. 4/8
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@wink_nod
@mollymcnearney
I have good company healthcare and I'm better off - no more lifetime limits, no more stress over preexisting conditions 🤷
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Yesterday my family marked the 12th anniversary of Seamus's death. He was killed by a careless driver in a crosswalk on the
@Oregondot
orphan highway that ran between our house and the grocery store 2 blocks away.
We miss him every day 💔
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In the saddest meeting with the most incredible group of traffic safety advocates yesterday,
@Fam4SafeStreets
members shared stories about the impact of car crashes on our lives with
@SecretaryPete
,
@Pollytrott
and other
@USDOT
heavy hitters. Our asks in the 🧵below:
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Today my 9yo son and I were biking home from a birthday party on a 2-lane street. We took the lane for 1/2 block while signaling to make a left turn and a driver tried to pass on the left. When he realized he couldn't make it w/out hitting us he honked and flipped us off 🙃
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I'm so grateful to
@schmangee
for writing this book. As the mom of a child killed in traffic violence, I often feel out of my depth in advocacy circles (i.e. around bike dudes) b/c I lack technical expertise. ROW brings issues into focus via inspiring ppl and stories.
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@ConorONeill914
@publicpolicyman
My son was killed by a driver turning right through a crosswalk. If you feel "terrified" making a right turn, listen to that feeling - it is telling you to slow down.
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I used to think of my union work as being siloed from other activism, but thanks to
#LaborNotes2022
I realize that labor is the connective tissue—not only between the issues I care most about, but all social justice work, throughout human history.
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Every time there’s a mass shooting families of people killed in car crashes have to put up with days and days of takes about how we accept crash deaths. Well I don’t accept either!
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Police said the couple killed in their bed last night were dressed in dark clothing and neither were wearing helmets at the time the accident occurred. An empty wine glass was found in the kitchen, and headphones found on the nightstand may have been a factor.
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Famous athlete crashes his car through a tree-lined median and across 2 lanes of highway, leaving no skid marks, rolling over multiple times before coming to rest 200 feet beyond the road. Yet police did not test him for DUI because he "did not seem impaired"🤔
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I am the mom of a kid killed by a car and it wasn't until years later that I learned that this is the most common way for children to die in the U.S.
How to describe the secondary shock of realizing we are supposed to accept this as the price for.. freedom? progress? (I don't!)
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Hi,
@OregonDOT
just curious why your safety project on Lombard stops short of the intersection where Ms. Chavez was struck. It's the same spot my toddler son was struck and killed by a driver 10 years ago. I circled the intersection on your project map in case you are unfamiliar.
@nomorefreeways
Lombard is the 11th highest crash corridor in Portland, which means it's an area of serious focus for us. We're currently in construction on a multimodal safety project to address that. Work here includes a road diet, buffered bike lanes, etc. Details:
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I am uniquely sensitive, I realize. I just wish as a culture we were a little more shocked and upset by traffic violence, and more thoughtful about the impact on children and families /
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Today my son Seamus would have turned 14 and I went for a walk in the evening like I always do on his birthday and I heard 2 owls calling to each other and I stood there for awhile staring into the trees but they quieted down so I kept walking 🦉
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@lydiakiesling
True story of how I found aftercare: my pediatrician told me abt someone named Mary and after asking around to no avail I got on Portland Maps and cold called every Mary in a 3 block radius til I found the ANGEL who picks up kids and let them hang at her house for $15 a day.
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My health insurer tried to take away our pain and suffering settlement after my 1yo son was killed by a careless driver in a crosswalk. An 8-month legal battle plus another 7 years to pass a law against this practice - I figured it out! Thanks for your trust, Mayor Pete!
Buttigieg: “I trust you to figure out your own health care.”
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My son's hugs felt like tackles from a tiny linebacker. 11+ yrs later I can still conjure the smell of his head and the exact shape of his body in my arms. Sending love to all the grieving parents I have come to know through this terrible bond
#zerotrafficdeaths
#WDoR2021
Traffic fatalities are the leading cause of death for US youth. We know how to create safer streets so kids of all ages get home safely. On November 21st
#WDoR2021
call for
#ZeroTrafficDeaths
so that no parent has to experience the pain of losing a child.
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@KeithMcCallin
@InternetHippo
@nowthisnews
It’s tough b/c the hospital was awful in this regard but wonderful in others ... our health insurer on the other hand was unequivocally evil and I would be 100% willing to talk about that or the overall fear of financial ruin that accompanied our loss. Thx for reaching out!
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Today my son's pediatrician called him by his dead brother's name, then apologized which was not necessary and then we both got teary-eyed and later my son asked if I had happy tears because he was growing so much and I said yes, which is also kind of true.
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My 3rd grade son gets in trouble a lot at school, but today he intervened when boys were calling a girl in his class fat. He said “No one needs to make their body smaller.” 🤩 (Don’t tell him this, but he gets a pass for the rest of the week)
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In case you are wondering what it’s like to go viral on Twitter, my 7yo son walked into the bathroom while I was showering this morning, pooped, then left without flushing.
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The woman killed by a driver while standing at a bus stop is the mom of 2 little kids and the driver is in jail so now seems like a good time to ask what are we doing about people getting killed by cars on sidewalks
@PBOTinfo
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My son Seamus would have turned 12 today. Also there's a kitten in my basement right now and my alive (sleeping) children have no idea. Time to hit puree on the emotions blender! Merry Christmas, everyone!❤️💚
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I have 9yo twins (3rd graders) who are beginning a science unit about force and objects, using car crashes as illustration. Their brother was killed by a careless driver in a crosswalk 11 yrs ago. A short 🧵
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As the mom a child who was killed by a careless driver, I'm disgusted by the city using Safe Routes to School as cover for brutalizing houseless people.
The times I have felt unsafe walking or biking with my kids to school, 100% of the time it's been due to cars
With the start of the school year approaching, I am taking additional action today to help ensure the safety of school-age children, especially those in elementary and middle schools, as they travel to and from local schools.
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Returning to work after the sudden death of your child is so brutal. No one knows what to say or how to act. I was "lucky" to have a colleague who was a bereaved parent.
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On a lighter note, tomorrow Seamus’s brother and sister will celebrate their 9th birthday. One silver lining of my trauma brain is being constantly surprised and delighted by having kids who get to grow up. (Also we’re in Maui which helps 😊)
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Something I took away from the
@labornotes
conference last year: Going on strike is serious but this kind of solidarity is absolutely joyful 🤩 ♥️✊
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As the mom of a child killed in a crash, safe streets advocacy can feel shouting into a void. So incredibly grateful to Amy Cohen and
@NYC_SafeStreets
- this profile is filling me with hope that our work (and our kids' lives) matter ❤️
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This is my son Seamus, killed by a careless driver at 22 months in a crash that could have been prevented with better crosswalk design.
Streets are for children, too.
Please join
@Fam4SafeStreets
and sign our petition at
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Notice how people who live in countries with single payer systems react with horror at American health care stories. They say things like "I only have to show my I.D." "I never received a bill." Americans, can you imagine????
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@robdelaney
♥️♥️♥️back and thanks for constantly screaming about healthcare
@robdelaney
- you know better than most how important it is
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Slightly embarrassing to be posting this. But being the mom of a dead toddler requires prying open that "death is the end" door and allowing a tiny ray of hope to shine through. Without that, I'd be dead, too. 💔
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I hope you will listen to this ep of
@TheWarOnCars
in which I talk about my family's insurance nightmare after our son was killed by a careless driver in 2010. Thx to
@BrooklynSpoke
for taking such care with the episode and our story
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Traffic safety Twitter: I'm talking with a journalist who is interested in stories about victim blaming in car crashes involving bikes/peds. Please respond or DM with examples of where initial police reports got it wrong and the media ran with it. TY!
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Please… if you are sharing this, remember that both are 100% preventable. We should accept neither.
The leading cause of death among children is guns.
For over 60 years, it was car accidents. As of 2020, it's guns.
Again: The leading cause of death among children is guns.
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As the mom of a toddler who died similarly, who has told my story to countless lawmakers, this is an absolutely stunning level of cowardice from a Vancouver, BC city councillor
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Me to my anxious 7yo at bedtime: “Do you have any more questions about Coronavirus?”
7yo: “No but I have a lot of comments.”
😬😬😬
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Show me a parent who has sat with their child in PICU and I'll show you a person who believes fiercely in socialized medicine.
Wrote this very quickly but needed to just get it out there.
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I arrived too late to testify but as the mom of a toddler who was killed by a driver on N. Lombard St. I'd ask
@OregonDOT
to invest in pedestrian and cyclist safety. My son died in his stroller on a 2-block walk from our house to the grocery store
#NOI5RQX
@ChloeEudalyPDX
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Anyway, there's statistics about crash deaths, and then there's a family shattered, glued back together somehow, only to be shattered again by traffic violence 💔
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I have one dead child, and often feel like the world is too small to hold all this pain. The scale of suffering and the gaslighting of our government about civilian casualties may be the most evil and depressing thing I have ever grappled with as a U.S. citizen
"Since this war began, the Israeli military has killed, on average, every day more than 100 children in Gaza."
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