Sad news...

[mightyduck]

Friends,

I came home today to find a former student of mine made the front page of the paper... after being killed in a car accident with another student. She was a senior.

I tell them to be careful, everyday.... Everyday I say, "Have fun, be careful, look both ways, don't run with scissors, don't play with matches, don't warm yourself over the open flame, and don't take candy from strangers and don't get into cars with people you don't know."

This girl would laugh and make me repeat the rules every day, roll her eyes at my safety paranoia....

To my teenage friends, please, be careful. Don't load up the car with your friends--only one passenger. Don't play music so loud you can't hear outside noise. Don't try to do other things while you're driving--concentrate on the road. Leave yourself plenty of time to get there. Drive slowly--better to be late than dead. [And if you can't be responsible enough to leave early consistently, take the bus--you're not responsible enough to be driving]. Don't drive late at night, when you're too tired, or if you've been drinking. Don't get into cars with people who are too tired or otherwise not at their best.

Many mourn crash victims

 

[DisJosh]

That's sad Mighty...sorry to hear.

 

[WDW-Imagineer]

I know all too well what their friends and classmates are going through...unfortunately an eerilly similar accident claimed the life of one of my classmates a little more than a month ago. Although death is hard to take at any age... death of a friend while somebody is still in grade school is pretty hard to handle. Its a chilling thought (well, really reality) that a girl I saw just about everyday for almost 6 years is gone forever. I will never get a chance to talk to or see her again.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the entire school and families. Unfortunately I know exactly how they all feel and what they are going through.

 

[Tramp]

Originally posted by mightyduck
Friends,

I came home today to find a former student of mine made the front page of the paper... after being killed in a car accident with another student. She was a senior.

[/URL]

Sorry to hear of this loss, Duckie. As a teacher, I'm sure you're aware that you will experience these tragedies often during your career and none of them will be easy to accept.

I was a teenager that scoffed at all those silly warnings too...and then my very first serious girlfriend, a high school senior, was killed in a head-on crash. Her little VW bug was no match for the speeding pickup truck loaded with other drunk teenagers, also killed in the accident.
Everytime I hear the song, "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, I have immediate flashbacks and full senses to the last time I kissed her goodbye as if it happened yesterday ......but it's been some 35 years. (Marcia probably knows that song well)

I hate to be this serious.

 

[mightyduck]

Re: Re: Sad news...

Originally posted by Tramp



I hate to be this serious.

I know that losing kids comes with the territory... the odds are stacked against me. It doesn't mean that it hurts any less. This is the first one from my roster.... in the past it's just been kids I knew.... It's hard enough when you watch them grow sicker.... but at least you expected it.

I'm sorry for you, too, Richie, and for WDW-I.

And I know you hate to be serious... Thanks.

 

[The Mom]

Re: Re: Sad news...

Originally posted by Tramp


Sorry to hear of this loss, Duckie. As a teacher, I'm sure you're aware that you will experience these tragedies often during your career and none of them will be easy to accept.

I was a teenager that scoffed at all those silly warnings too...and then my very first serious girlfriend, a high school senior, was killed in a head-on crash. Her little VW bug was no match for the speeding pickup truck loaded with other drunk teenagers, also killed in the accident.
Everytime I hear the song, "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, I have immediate flashbacks and full senses to the last time I kissed her goodbye as if it happened yesterday ......but it's been some 35 years. (Marcia probably knows that song well)

I hate to be this serious.

Yes, I know the song well, and yes, I also lost classmates while in high school. I think the death of a contemporary hits teenagers harder because this is not the natural order of things, at least not in modern society. In the past, the majority of infants died, and numerous teenage males died in war and through accidents, while teenage females died in childbirth. All age groups were killed by disease. Our society and modern medicine have shielded us from this. I lost a friend to cancer in the 60s; she would have been in "permanent" remission if diagnosed and treated today.

Unfortunately, deaths in car accidents are just as, if not more, common today as in the 60s. Teenagers are old enough to understand death in the abstract, but it's a real encounter with reality, and the unfairness of life, when it hits home.

Mighty, I feel for you, and know you have some difficult days ahead in your classroom.

 

[mightyduck]

Re: Re: Re: Sad news...

Originally posted by marciahahn




Mighty, I feel for you, and know you have some difficult days ahead in your classroom.

Thanks, Marcia....Actually, it's my former colleagues that have their hands full... That's the school I taught in last year...

 

[Tink]

I'm sorry to hear this, Mighty.

Makes me think of that sad poem by A.E. Houseman (I think? I know you know it, Mighty..."The time you won your town the race...").

Hang in there.

 

[mickeyfan]

Hey Mighty,

That was very sad news and all to similar to the news I have heard the past year here in my school system in Florida. (I am the Superintendent's Office Manager) Last year two days before graduation a group of seniors where going on the annual "senior canoe trip". The driver was late and in a hurry and passed a car and hit another head on. It killed his best friend and seriously injured the other passenger in his car (who is still in a rehab center -- now for six months). The driver was admitted to the hospital and released the next day with minor injuries. The car he hit had grandparents with their grandson in it headed to the beach for the day. The accident killed the grandfather as well. Now the boy, 18 years old, has been charged with vehicular homicide. What a sad time in everyone's lives.

We have had other students killed in accidents, a 12 year old hit by a car on her bike on the way to school (she's okay now) and other accidents that you always make you ask -- but why?

I pray for the family of your student and for you as well. It is never easy losing someone you know.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[mightyduck]

Ah, yes, Tink... "To an Athlete Dying Young..."

Thanks for your support everyone.

 

[Tink]

I knew you'd know it, Mighty. I knew the words - not the title. Unfortunately, most of us have experienced its sadness more than we care to when someone young is lost. I'll be thinking about you.