PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — A Land O’ Lakes student just won a national award for a documentary she made.

Eliza Lammers, 12, won the award in C-SPAN’s StudentCam competition. Students around the country take on a variety of issues in video documentaries.

Lammers did her documentary on maternal mortality in the United States.

“I learned that 3 in 5 maternal health complications are preventable,” Lammers said in an interview. “I knew that Congress had to address this. We have to fix this.”

She put together a short documentary on the subject, which took hours of research and interviews with doctors.

She submitted it to C-SPAN and won a third-place award among hundreds of other students across the U.S.

“I’m super excited. Super pumped. When I found out, I got the email in my second period class and nearly had a heart attack,” Lammers said.

Eliza is a 7th grader at Charles S. Rushe middle school in Land O’ Lakes.

She first learned about maternal mortality from conversations with her mom and doctors.

“America is such a developed country. Has such amazing technology. But it has one of the world’s lowest maternal health rates in the world,” Lammers said.

Her short film explores that issue and what the U.S. can do about it.

For her award she won $750, which she says she is putting away for college. Eliza also says she hopes to become a medical researcher.

“I’m happy this issue is being heard,” Lammers said.

C-SPAN is funded in part by cable companies like Spectrum.

To see her full documentary, you can watch it here: https://www.viddler.com/v/d5ae708b