His name is Sandy Golden. He was just nine years old when he got polio, became an iron lung boy, and almost died. It was the year before Dr. Jonas Salk invented a critical vaccine and changed the world.
At the time, the only way to save the gravely ill Sandy was to place his entire little body, with the exception of his head, inside a metal box called an iron lung, a negative pressure ventilator, to help him to breathe and to fight for his own life.
Under the tender care of his medical team, or perhaps through his own sheer will to live, Sandy survived. For the rest of his life, he would always remember how as a little boy, he spent months in a hospital, lying stiff and paralyzed inside a metal case, fighting for his tortured breaths, not knowing if he would still be alive the next hour, or the next day.
Sandy knew his life was a miracle and wanted to dedicate it to helping people. Eventually, he found his dream job of being an investigative reporter in the Washington, D.C. area. Little did he know that he would soon encounter another life-altering moment through his news reporting.
He met her in her hospital room at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore right before she was discharged. She was as small and perfect as a baby doll. Her name was Laura Lamb. Only nine months old, she had spent more than half of her life in the hospital. Being a victim of a repeat drunk driving offender, she was now a quadriplegic, paralyzed from her neck down. She would never be able to walk a step in her life. It was 1980, and America had yet to wake up to begin the fight against drunk driving.
It was an extremely emotional meeting. Sandy saw himself in Laura, unable to move, except that he had been able to recover while she never would. Her mother’s ordinary grocery shopping trip had doomed her for the rest of her life, simply because someone had too many drinks and happened to be on the road at the same time. Sandy realized it was the moment when he found his calling.
His life was spared by polio so he could now use it to fight for children like Laura. Then and there, as he looked at her angelic, innocent face, he made her a promise that he would spend the rest of his life getting drunk drivers off the road so people like her could have a life.
He kept his solemn promise. Less than two years after he met Laura, Sandy’s tireless, heroic efforts pushed awareness of this deadly problem to the highest level of our government, resulting in the appointment of the first Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving.
For the next 40 some years, he organized grassroot level campaigns around the country, becoming a nationally-known speaker, writer, and expert on drunk driving.
Now, Sandy is the president of ConcernedAngels.org, a nonprofit group fighting drunk driving, as well as a sea captain in Southern California. If our world is an unpredictable sea, Sandy wants to be the captain steering his own boat.
As this holiday season approaches, we can all help Captain Sandy fulfill his promise to Laura by not drinking and driving. We can also volunteer to be a designated driver after a holiday party and educate our young people about how to drink responsibly.
For more details, check out the website for ConcernedAngels.org to find out more about this important organization.
Reflections From The East Column
By Qin Sun Stubis
You can always reach me at qstubis@gmail.com.
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