Engineering senior Desiree Parks, who is anticipated to graduate in May 2015, is reportedly busy looking into future employment options, completely oblivious to the fact that in only seven short months, she will be hit in the head by a massive falling tree branch and will thus be unable to maintain a career or even move her body. Parks is taking into consideration factors such as job location and starting salary, all without the awareness that, following graduation, she will be paralyzed for life.
As she naively applies to promising jobs in her field, Parks has made two trips to the Career Center, updated her LinkedIn, and applied for several positions. Simultaneously, a tree branch in Biloxi, Mississippi, will be rotting from the inside out until a mid-June rainstorm, at which point the wind will rip the 200-pound limb from the tree and send it falling directly onto Parks, leaving her unable to operate her arms, hands, feet, or legs.
Parks, a Biomedical Engineering student, has expressed interest in working in the field of research, with apparently no consideration for the fact that laboratory research will require mobility of the limbs. Parks is currently thinking about going into stem cell research in particular, which she ironically will be completely dependent upon for any hope of gaining use of her body again.
Just last week, the oblivious Parks asked Professor Patrick Tram to write her a letter of recommendation, failing to realize that her own mother will later pack this letter into one of several boxes containing Parks’ diploma, roller blades, and other items deemed “too painful to have laying around the house.”
At press time, Parks has decided to take a year off post-graduation to allow herself time to travel and “enjoy [her] freedom before real life sets in,” perhaps somewhere nice and warm like Biloxi, Mississippi.
