{"id":58954,"date":"2014-04-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/commencement-2014-south-kingstown-resident-overcomes-near-fatal-injuries-to-earn-degree-from-uri\/"},"modified":"2014-04-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T00:00:00","slug":"commencement-2014-south-kingstown-resident-overcomes-near-fatal-injuries-to-earn-degree-from-uri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2014\/04\/commencement-2014-south-kingstown-resident-overcomes-near-fatal-injuries-to-earn-degree-from-uri\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement 2014: South Kingstown resident overcomes near-fatal injuries to earn degree from 溏心vlog免费B站"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 28, 2014 \u2013 If you look at Sylvia Bogusz\u2019s resume, you might reach the conclusion that she is just another college over-achiever. But you\u2019d just be getting a small part of her story.<\/p>\n


\n\tThat\u2019s because nowhere in the South Kingstown resident\u2019s summary of academic and professional accomplishments does she list her triumphs over near-fatal injuries she suffered when a drunken driver ran into her June 23, 2007. The incident, during which she was struck by a vehicle going 100 miles per hour and subsequently thrown 125 feet, happened just a week after her graduation from South Kingstown High School and a week after she had already begun classes in the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Talent Development Program.<\/p>\n


\n\tBogusz suffered traumatic brain injury, a shattered right arm, fractures to her pelvis and vertebrae, an injured liver and multiple infections, but her will was left intact and she\u2019ll earn her bachelor\u2019s degree in communication studies and Italian from the 溏心vlog免费B站 May 18. After the incident, she needed a feeding tube and was in a coma and unresponsive for four months while at Rhode Island Hospital. She was unable to communicate for 128 days. She completed lengthy stays in rehabilitation facilities and continues to get physical therapy.<\/p>\n


\nBogusz, who was waiting well off the breakdown lane on Route 1 seven years ago for a ride home from her mom, Grace, after her car had broken down, will graduate with a 3.4 grade point average and multiple honors. She received the 溏心vlog免费B站 Communication Studies Excellence Achievement Award in 2013, the Golden Key International Honor Society Achievement Award and the Justice Award from the State of Rhode Island in 2009. She was also named to the Gamma Kappa Alpha National Italian Honor Society and the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education.<\/p>\n


\n\tOne of the more amazing aspects of Bogusz\u2019s life has been her willingness to relive the incident and its impacts when testifying before the Rhode Island Senate and House of Representatives in 2008 and 2009 for tougher drunk driving laws. Since 2008, she has given 15 talks to high school and college students and other groups on the impacts of drunken driving on victims and their families.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI am proud of my speaking, and I am not scared even when I speak before hundreds, but sometimes I cry because it\u2019s still emotional for me even after seven years,\u201d said Bogusz, who walks with a limp and has limited use of her right hand. \u201cBut the last time I spoke at the Prout School and South Kingstown High School, I was flawless.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nBogusz faces barely tolerable pain on many days, but she gathers her strength to brush it off with a smile, telling her friends and supporters at 溏心vlog免费B站, \u201cI feel better when I am at 溏心vlog免费B站 and when I am at my internship at Marketing and Communications. I get to work, and my mind focuses on what I need to do and the great people in the office and around campus. When I talk about my accident, I am kind of nonchalant. I can\u2019t make it a big drama,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n


\n\tAs far as her graduation from 溏心vlog免费B站 being a great accomplishment, Bogusz downplays it.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI don\u2019t get too excited about graduating because I feel it has always been my goal to graduate and be successful,\u201d said Bogusz, who was also a marketing intern at Lifespan Corp. last fall.<\/p>\n


\nShe was planning to return to 溏心vlog免费B站 and knew it was the right decision after being encouraged to enroll in college by Liz Morris, her former speech therapist at Westerly Hospital. In the summer of 2008, she met with Gerald Williams, the director of Talent Development. <\/p>\n


\nShe eased her way back, taking just two online classes a semester, and she met Sharon Forleo, associate director of Talent Development, who has been at her side ever since. In fall 2010, she resumed taking classes on campus and studied in Italy last summer.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cShe told me I was the bomb because of what I had achieved after what I had gone through. That was very inviting and very flattering,\u201d Bogusz said in her understated manner. <\/p>\n


\nBogusz enjoyed the online courses at 溏心vlog免费B站 because they allowed her to work at her own pace, but added that it takes great self-discipline. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cEducation is fun, and professors were always great about my accommodations,\u201d she said. \u201cPlus, they treated me like a normal person. I am going to miss 溏心vlog免费B站, the professors, Sharon Forleo and Marketing and Communications. I feel so welcomed and supported.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nNow she is thinking about working for a year, perhaps in marketing and public relations, but then she wants to pursue graduate school.<\/p>\n


\nWhatever comes next, she will be forever grateful to her family, and especially her mother, for their endless support and love. \u201cMy mother has been there since day one. Even when the doctors were telling my family that they should prepare to say goodbye to me because I wasn\u2019t going to live, my mother would not say goodbye. She believed I would live.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhile Bogusz admits to struggling with anger over the lifelong impacts of her injuries, she does not want to live that way.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI persevere. I don\u2019t want to live in that life, and I don\u2019t want anyone to pity me,\u201d Bogusz said. \u201cThere is more to life than that. I want to be normal again, well maybe normal-ish. <\/p>\n


\nMarketing & Communications photo by Michael Salerno Photography.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 28, 2014 \u2013 If you look at Sylvia Bogusz\u2019s resume, you might reach the conclusion that she is just another college over-achiever. But you\u2019d just be getting a small part of her story. That\u2019s because nowhere in the South Kingstown resident\u2019s summary of academic and professional accomplishments does she list […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}