What a day.
That wacky woman, Wordnerd, tagged me for a meme where you write a 6 word memoir for yourself. Six words. If you read my blog, you know I am a wordy person and 6 words? Well. Not easy pour moi. Here's what I finally came up with after a few of my self-imposed Type A episodes of putting together just the right ones:
Coffee loving, chocoholic, opinionated Southern woman.
I don't know. I adore my Wordnerd, so I gave it a shot.
Now, I link back to her for tagging me and to the original tag spot.
You are all free to play along as I am not up to tagging the standard 5 bloggers and linking back to them this evening.
I am a bit down and distracted this evening. I went to pick up my son at school, as usual, this afternoon and parked in the student parking lot, as usual. I didn't go to the carpool line as the son was to stay a bit after school to meet with his Dean. I was off to the side that is by the Field House. I was reading to pass the time, as usual, when I noticed two coaches come running out of the Field House. Normally the adults on campus don't run as it causes alarm. One was talking in his walkie-talkie as he ran. A few minutes later I see flashing lights and notice a fire truck pull up in the teacher's parking lot across the field, past the tennis courts. Then an EMT parks at the door of the natatorium. Then 2 emergency vehicles, Suburbans park next to the fire truck. A helicopter circles in the sky. Then another helicopter appears. News crews. I see a stretcher go in, then come back out. Oh, no, I thought. That's not good if no one is being rushed off. Then a tank of oxygen is brought in by an EMT. Teachers are placing themselves to re-direct the students that will soon be streaming out of the buildings. One teacher has a bull horn.
Really surreal.
I hear the loudspeaker announcement that all students must leave the building at dismissal and not linger. So, I knew my son's meeting would be cancelled.
My son came out. I asked what was going on. He said a kid that couldn't swim jumped in the swimming pool during physics class. The physics class had a project where they build boats out of cardboard and duct tape. They were in the last class period of the day, in my son's case it was Environmental Science class, and one of my son's classmates said he got a text message saying, "Dude, a kid just drowned." I think my heart stopped at that point. My son didn't know anything else other than the student couldn't swim and had jumped in after his project finished in the water.
On a local news station's web site it was reported that the student was transported to a hospital. It seemed he survived. Then about 5:00 we got a taped message from school that the student died. So very sad. Counselors will be on campus in the morning.
On the 6:00 broadcast of local news it was reported that he jumped into the deep end with 4 other classmates. He was under water for 3 minutes, according to the report.
Senseless. He was 17 years old.
12 comments:
You have had one of those days Karen, almost witnessing but certainly experiencing by loose association, a sad event. Death and dying, through either accident, old age or illness is always around us. It never loses its capacity to make us stop, pause and reflect. Little wonder you feel down and distracted perhaps somewhat despondent. Sad about the youngster...Take care...
:-(
So sad.
That poor child. What were the other kids doing while he drowned? It's almost unbelievable to consider, Karen. I can't imagine your fear while watching all of that; it's like living out a CNN "Special Bulltin" in your front yard and while you can't see your own kid!
May God bless them all, especially his poor parents.
That's so unbelievably, unbearably sad. I'm with Z, who wonders what the others were doing. I can't bear to think of things like this. I can't imagine what it was like to be right there.
Love your six-worder, btw.
So sad, so sad.
What made him JUMP?
My older son is a terrible swimmer, and I fear this sort of thing for him one day. So so so sad.
Sad happening. Makes one suddenly realise how precious and fragile life is.
I too, would like to know why he jumped in, if he couldn't swim?
Just more depressing news as I am thanking G-d and getting over my own situation over the weekend. I wrote a short update on the blog and now am visiting all that visited me while I was off.
I am so sorry to hear about this student. I was beginning to feel a bit more grounded, but that just sunk me back down in depressedville again.
Sorry that happened at your son's school and sympathies to the students family.
nevermind where the students were, where the heck was the teacher???
my grandfather almost drowned when he was 10 years old because he hadn't learned how to swim. because of his near-death experience he was hyper vigilant against it happening to us.
to that end each of his children and grandchildren were well-schooled in swimming. the same can now be said about his great-grandchildren.
be well, karen, and keep your wits about you. this is sad news, but if there is a silverlining in any of this, it's that it wasn't a depraved act perpetrated by someone else.
That is terrible. What could have happened?
Life is real
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