Sunday, March 13, 2011
Japan
Over the weekend a terrible tragedy occured in the small country of Japan. An 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck, which is believed to be the largest earthquake in history to ever hit Japan. It was so strong, analysts believe that it may have actually moved Japan's main island eight feet, and shifted the Earth axis four inches. Not only were they struck by a record breaking earthquake, they also had to endure a gigantic tsunami that reached six miles inland. This horrific tragedy is expected to have a death toll of over 10,000.
When I heard the news late Friday morning it really hit home, because I traveled to Japan three summers ago. My family also has hosted 6 different Japanese exchange students from Kamogawa that we still stay in contact with. I immediately ran to my computer to check and see if the tsunami had hit Kamogawa, which was located about two hours away from Tokyo right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. As I began to surf different news sites I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were already videos posted of the fierce water whipping trucks around as if they were play tonka trucks. People were fleeing to the highest ground or running as fast as they could for shelter as the water rushed in destroying their homes. I was relieved to find that the Tsunami had hit farther north and had not damaged Kamogawa, but felt terrible watching other parts of Japan being destroyed and not being able to do anything.
On Sunday afternoon I recieved an email from Aya, an exchange student that had stayed with us a couple years ago. She described the mass hysteria that was going on in her country. She also told me how she had been in Tokyo when the earthquake occured and had to walk four hours to her aunts house for safety, because the public transportation had been shut down. On her long walk, she came across a nursing home that had completely crumbled to the ground. There were many people already helping drag people out, and they begged her to help too. She said it was the most horrific thing she had ever seen, and prayed that there weren't to many other buildings left like this. It wasn't until she got to her aunts house that she found out about the tsunami that devastated the coast.
Everyday I hear terrible stories on the news that I think about for a couple of minutes, and then I go on with my day. It wasn't until getting insight from someone who was there that it really effected me. It actually became reality for me rather than some guy on the news telling me a story about something that happened thousands of miles away.
When I heard the news late Friday morning it really hit home, because I traveled to Japan three summers ago. My family also has hosted 6 different Japanese exchange students from Kamogawa that we still stay in contact with. I immediately ran to my computer to check and see if the tsunami had hit Kamogawa, which was located about two hours away from Tokyo right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. As I began to surf different news sites I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were already videos posted of the fierce water whipping trucks around as if they were play tonka trucks. People were fleeing to the highest ground or running as fast as they could for shelter as the water rushed in destroying their homes. I was relieved to find that the Tsunami had hit farther north and had not damaged Kamogawa, but felt terrible watching other parts of Japan being destroyed and not being able to do anything.
On Sunday afternoon I recieved an email from Aya, an exchange student that had stayed with us a couple years ago. She described the mass hysteria that was going on in her country. She also told me how she had been in Tokyo when the earthquake occured and had to walk four hours to her aunts house for safety, because the public transportation had been shut down. On her long walk, she came across a nursing home that had completely crumbled to the ground. There were many people already helping drag people out, and they begged her to help too. She said it was the most horrific thing she had ever seen, and prayed that there weren't to many other buildings left like this. It wasn't until she got to her aunts house that she found out about the tsunami that devastated the coast.
Everyday I hear terrible stories on the news that I think about for a couple of minutes, and then I go on with my day. It wasn't until getting insight from someone who was there that it really effected me. It actually became reality for me rather than some guy on the news telling me a story about something that happened thousands of miles away.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Wes Leonard
On Friday while watching the news I heard a story about a high school basketball team from Fennville, Mi that seemed too horrific to be true. They reported that Wes Leonard a junior at Fennville High School had collapsed and died just a few minutes after scoring the game winning lay up in overtime. He went to shake his opponents hands and was about to take a picture with his team when he fell to the ground. He was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead a couple hours later. This win gave them a 20-0 record for the first time ever in Fennville history. He wasn't just an amazing basketball player, he also was a terrific quarterback.
I was shocked when I heard this and extremely curious to find out what caused this 16 year old to die unexpectedly and so quickly without warning. The next day an autopsy report came back stating that he had gone into cardiac arrest from an undiagnosed enlarged heart. I began to do research and found that there are rarely any symptoms at first, but you may begin to feel tired or out of breathe which is typical for anyone who just got done playing a two hour basketball game. This makes it very hard to detect. Only 1 in every 1000 high school athletes die from this each year.
My next question was is there anything that we can do to prevent this from happening again? I found that you can use something called an electrocardiograms that is used to pick up irregular heart rhythms. The only problem is that they are very costly and not always the most accurate. They don't always pick up all the defects within the heart. Also, do we really want to be scaring our kids about a condition that is so uncommon?
His visitation was held today and over 1,400 people attended. Even 12 teams from within their conference showed up to pay their respects. After a long weekend of mourning, the Flennville basketball team decided that they would still participate in the start of the playoffs on Monday in honor of Wes. The game is going to be held at Hope College, because of the large expected attendance.
I was shocked when I heard this and extremely curious to find out what caused this 16 year old to die unexpectedly and so quickly without warning. The next day an autopsy report came back stating that he had gone into cardiac arrest from an undiagnosed enlarged heart. I began to do research and found that there are rarely any symptoms at first, but you may begin to feel tired or out of breathe which is typical for anyone who just got done playing a two hour basketball game. This makes it very hard to detect. Only 1 in every 1000 high school athletes die from this each year.
My next question was is there anything that we can do to prevent this from happening again? I found that you can use something called an electrocardiograms that is used to pick up irregular heart rhythms. The only problem is that they are very costly and not always the most accurate. They don't always pick up all the defects within the heart. Also, do we really want to be scaring our kids about a condition that is so uncommon?
His visitation was held today and over 1,400 people attended. Even 12 teams from within their conference showed up to pay their respects. After a long weekend of mourning, the Flennville basketball team decided that they would still participate in the start of the playoffs on Monday in honor of Wes. The game is going to be held at Hope College, because of the large expected attendance.
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