[dafleur]

Past year filled with several student deaths

By Adam Smeltz
asmeltz@centredaily.com

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STATE COLLEGE -- Andrew J. Drebitko III and Richard Helman Jr. died after their car veered out of control in Union County.

Xiaohui Xia was killed when she crossed paths with a car on South Allen Street.

On South Gill Street, Jon R. Taiclet was found lifeless in his bed, his death a mystery. On South Pugh Street, Michael Donahue was stabbed in the heart.

Youngcheol Park was beaten to death on Nimitz Avenue. Tyrone Myers Jr. was shot to death in Philadelphia.

They and 28 other Penn State students across Pennsylvania died during the last 12 months, according to university statistics. The toll -- 35 known deaths -- is one of the highest in recent years at Penn State.

The university saw 25 student fatalities in the same period from 2000 to 2001, 26 from '01 to '02, and 32 from '02 to '03.

Exact data for the periods from May 2003 to May 2005 were not available this week. But an annual memorial service in April 2005 honored 27 students who died in the preceding 12 months.

Senior Nick Stathes, the new Undergraduate Student Government president, has talked with his contemporaries about the most recent deaths.

"They seem random and indiscriminate," Stathes said this week. "Even some of the most extreme cases, like at Club Love."

That's where Donahue was stabbed on Feb. 17, apparently as he tried to defuse a conflict. Stathes said he was in the bar earlier that night.

"It could have been anyone," he said.

University records of student deaths may be imprecise, spokesman Tysen Kendig said, because Penn State is not necessarily notified when a collegian dies.

If a student dies during a summer vacation, for instance, the university may not receive official notification, Kendig said.

Some high-profile student deaths, especially the stabbing, the beating, the shooting and the Gill Street mystery this semester, have drawn heavy news coverage. But the overall fatality numbers are "not as inordinate or unprecedented as media coverage of the unfortunate student losses ... might lead one to believe," Kendig wrote in an e-mail.

An unscientific check of other large universities -- Temple and Ohio State -- suggested no broad trends in student fatality rates. Ohio State, which enrolls about 58,000 students, has counted 10 student deaths since April 2005, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Penn State counts about 80,000 students statewide. Some of its student deaths and serious accidents this year have been linked directly to alcohol. State police said this week that alcohol was a factor in the high-speed wreck that killed Drebitko and Helman.

Mary Anne Knapp, a clinical social worker, said the age of the victims can make their deaths especially difficult for their friends and acquaintances.

"I think, in general, it's particularly tragic when someone dies so early in life," said Knapp, a senior staff therapist at the Penn State Center for Counseling and Psychological Services. "It feels like that does make it so much harder, when people are trying to launch themselves, form their identities, and then their life is ended."

She said friends of the deceased may wait some time -- even a couple months -- before they decide to seek counseling.

"They're maybe having panic symptoms. Part of what they're struggling with may be that the death ... has burst a sense of immortality, or that sense that things are OK or safe," Knapp said.

But for many people, she said, the death of a friend can be a "wake-up call to try to enjoy life, to do something meaningful now rather than wait."

Stathes said his peers seem to be most shaken by the random nature of some student deaths.

"They realize that it was just basically a stroke of luck that it wasn't them," he said.

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/14495006.htm

[koneee]

holy crap that's so scary... a few people have passed away from my school this school year too! It's so sad! RIP to all of them, thats freakin scary.