Trebor Randle
“By influencing behaviour in just one household, we can slowly change the world”
I decided early on that I didn’t want to be in jail, or in hospital having my stomach pumped or, heaven forbid, be responsible for my parents having to bury me.
That might sound dramatic but growing up in a small town near Chicago, gun violence was the norm. I’d see shootings at teen parties at the weekend and my friends were involved in things they shouldn’t have been – drugs, underage drinking, gangs.
I’m not a fan of people blaming their environment for everything. It plays a part in your development, of course it does, but for me it is all about accountability. When you’re young some of the bad stuff seems exciting but you soon understand that for every action there’s a consequence. So, whose side was I going to be on? I knew I wanted to be part of the solution, not the problem.
Today, that means my job is to prevent fatalities of children in the State of Georgia. Our start point is that 80% of child deaths are preventable – meaning they are sudden and unexpected and not because of underlying medical causes.
“We expect our children to grow up, graduate school, go to college, get married and have a family. That doesn’t happen for a thousand kids a year in the State of Georgia”
As parents we expect our children to grow up, graduate school, go to college, get married and have a family. That doesn’t happen for a thousand kids a year in the State of Georgia and losing one child is one too many. Something has happened to cut their life short. It’s my job to find out what happened and ask what could have been done differently.
When children’s lives are threatened, the world tends to sit up and listen, but I’m still hugely frustrated that a lack of knowledge leads to senseless deaths. In our state alone, every year as many as 150 infants die as a result of unsafe sleep, the majority accidentally suffocated in an adult bed, face down between Mom and Dad. It’s so sad, and all for the want of a little bit of education, a little bit of information. It’s not difficult; we tell new parents to remember the safe sleep ABC – making sure the baby is ‘Alone, on its Back and in a Crib’.
My personal quest has always been to protect those who can’t fend for themselves. For 7 years my job was at the other end of the age spectrum, investigating abuse of the elderly. In many cases victims were effectively neglected to death. Sadly, to be frank, there are no voices standing up for the elderly in care homes, society prefers to look the other way, but I took an oath to protect and serve and I was proud to stand up for them as best I could.
It sometimes seems that we have more and more problems in this country, but I have my faith and I believe that every day we can make things better. As long as we keep talking, we have hope. If we can educate one parent not to fall asleep in bed next to their baby and one grandparent to lock their guns away when the grandchildren come to visit, we have the potential to save a life. By influencing behaviour in just one household, we can slowly change the world. One baby at a time, one youth at a time, one community at a time.
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