Imagine your worst fear as a parent--that something terrible happens to your child. Intensify that horror because you caused the injury. USA Today, CNBC, NBC, and Newsday have interviewed Manhasset resident Susan Auriemma following her accidental automobile backup into her daughter, and consequently, the massive safety campaign she has launched to prevent this tragedy from happening to anyone else.

It was Friday of Memorial Day Weekend, 2005, when the Auriemma family was embracing the beginning of summer. Auriemma was driving her eldest daughter to a birthday party, she let the babysitter know her plans, and she said goodbye to both her then 3-year-old daughter, Kate, and her son. When outside, she checked around her Volvo SUV before reversing out of her driveway.

As Auriemma slowly pulled away from her house, she heard screams. At first, she thought they were shrieks of delight from a neighbor's child. Instantaneously, Auriemma jumped out of her car and saw a horror that will be imprinted on her mind forever. Three-year-old Kate was wobbling around the back of the car with her face and body covered in blood, torn clothes, and a look of bewilderment on her face. Frightened and confused, Kate looked up at her mother and asked, "Mommy, why did you hit me with the car?"

After Kate was rushed to the ER in an ambulance on a backboard and neck brace, attended by an ER trauma team, and given a full set of X-rays, the diagnosis was positive. Kate suffered abrasions to her face, shoulder, arm, and legs. She looked worse than it was, but she was going to be fine.

Facing the reality that she ran over her daughter by accident, Auriemma was prompted to focus on issues of safety that, ironically, she was already immersed in on the local level in Manhasset. Specifically, Auriemma is one of four co-directors of the Coalition for a Safer Manhasset (CSM). The mission of CSM is to increase safety in Manhasset and to make the town more pedestrian friendly. Auriemma threw herself into this mission by taking an invitation only, 13-week, 39-hour Citizens Police Academy course at Nassau County Police Headquarters for community activists, and on June 7 received her certificate. She learned aspects of a safer community while opening up lines of communication with Nassau government officials. Auriemma stated that, "The education helped me to understand why police are doing what they are doing. It gave me a new perspective."

Initially, Auriemma wanted to "put the entire incident to bed." But the nagging feeling of good fortune and incredible abundance continually swept over Auriemma who believed she had received a "gift the night my daughter survived the backover. My gift to others is to fight to inform and educate as many people as I can so more lives will be saved." In particular, Auriemma stresses that there are "redundant layers of safety to prevent backovers," explaining further that, "Over the past several months I have come to realize what really created the incident. I had assumed that my child knew not to run behind a moving car. Thinking I was keeping her safe, I spent all my time holding her hand in parking lots and never gave her any skills or knowledge of how to behave around cars. I had assumed that because there was an adult in the house that she was safe. I always kept the door locked and never warned her of the dangers of going out of the house without an adult. Most importantly though, I had assumed that because there were no children behind my car when I got into it, that this was still the case when I began to move." Furthermore, Auriemma relived and tried to straighten out the traumatic event in her mind by talking about it continually with close friends and relatives. She finally came to this conclusion. "My daughter ran behind a car." Friends would insist, "You didn't run her over, she ran after you and you happened to be in your car." A child ran behind a car in search of her mother.

Disregarding any personal attacks or judgments on her character, Auriemma is determined to get the word out on accidents involving backups so she wrote a letter to the editor of the Manhasset Press which generated the type of news coverage she wanted in order to alert drivers. First, Sense Technologies, a public relations company, contacted Susan which then led to a USA Today piece entitled, "How to Prevent Backover Deaths of Kids?" (Tuesday, July 18). Both CNBC and NBC taped Auriemma for The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch (July 24) and NBC 4 Evening News scheduled to air the week of August 14. Additionally, the Long Island Press did a spotlight on Auriemma's campaign that included an interview with Bill and Adrian Nelson of Dix Hills whose son died when a close family member backed over him in their driveway. They are another family along with Dr. Gulbransen who are very active in the cause. (Dr. Gulbransen's story can be found at www.citizen.org/autosafety/legislation)

Moreover, because of Auriemma's work with CSM, she was written up in Newsday, "A Courtesy Comeback," July 23, for her tireless efforts to create a safer, kinder Manhasset. Furthermore, CSM received the Smart Growth Award from Vision Long Island. Vision Long Island concentrates on incentives to improve quality of life for Long Islanders and foresees that CSM will serve as a model for traffic patterns, pedestrian safety, and general community efforts islandwide.

Extensive research led Auriemma to Jannette Fennell, founder and president of Kids and Cars, (www.kidsandcars.org) a nonprofit organization intent on educating and informing drivers of the dangers of mixing children and cars and to "assure no child dies or is injured in a non-traffic, motor vehicle related event." Fennell's Kids and Cars has documented 561 incidents from 1994-2004 and states on its website: "Most accidents involve children under the age of 4. Backovers can happen in any vehicle because all vehicles have a blind zone; the area behind a vehicle you can't see from the driver's seat. The danger tends to increase with large vehicles." Fennell works with car manufacturers and Consumers' Union. Fennell has successfully lobbied in Washington D.C. for additional safety devices in automobiles including mandatory trunk release latches and power window designs that help prevent strangulation incidents.

Auriemma is a determined advocate on accidents involving backups and stresses the "redundant layers of safety" to prevent future accidents that all drivers must begin to incorporate into their daily habit of driving: Know children are supervised; educate children; check surroundings; use mirrors; look over shoulder - more than once; be sure the radio and air conditioner/heater are turned off; be sure that the windows are open; and use technology but do not rely solely on rearview cameras, beepers, etc.

Auriemma continues, "If you told someone in the 1960s that seat belts would be mandatory and children under 40 pounds would be required to wear a five-point harness, by law, who would have known?" Auriemma is pushing for car companies to absorb the cost of rearview cameras and wide -angle lenses fixed to cover the blind spot of drivers. Auriemma muses, "Eventually it will be mandatory in all cars."

On a wall in Susan's home, sits a lone sign; "Stop me before I volunteer again!" There is no stopping Auriemma in her campaign to educate drivers, and consequently save lives. There is no stopping this woman from making Manhasset a safer, nicer community. And finally, there is no stopping Susan Auriemma from thanking her lucky stars for the gift of her beautiful daughter's life that fateful day back in May of 2005.