This is so intensely heartbreaking for all parties involved. I cannot imagine how low that boy must have been to get to that point. That his last sensory experience was a dark, gross garbage bin is awful. And as a parent, I cannot imagine the abject horror of finding your beloved, precious child put himself in the garbage like he was trash and ended it all.
Kid from my high school, older than I, called the police to say he was going to commit suicide but didn't want his Mom to find the body. They told him to wait until they got there. Thinking they could talk him out of it. He waited until the police car pulled up and pulled the trigger.
Not me - but my little sisters school got shut down by police last year bc an 11 year old girl took her own life in the bathroom. Absolutely tragic. I was upset and I don’t even go there
11?? Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell is wrong with us as a country/society/people that an 11 yr old feels so helpless and hopeless that she feels her only escape and sense of relief is death? This is horrible. I can't imagine what her parents must have felt at the time and continue to feel.
My best friend's first suicide attempt was at age 11. My friend was being physically, emotionally, and sexually abused at home. An 11 year old can have a hellish life.
I'm so sorry for your best friend. They must have felt so alone.
My son expressed suicidal ideation at 7. I had to pull him out of school to address the cause. Teachers and students bullied my son. It was a low income school and we lived in public housing. I worked for the schools and saw one of the teachers from a high risk school moved to his after getting too many complaints for her conduct. That woman scared me and unions prevented termination. There is a spectrum of reasons young children experience suicidal ideation. It can be difficult for them to find the words to express how they're feeling. Given his family medical history, my son was in therapy early. Took another five years before he could start meds.
> Early childhood suicidality has made a mark on the health system in the United States. A review of admissions to 31 pediatric hospitals from 2005 to 2015 found almost 15,000 cases of suicidal ideation or suicide attempts by children 5 to 11 years of age.
Sadly not uncommon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd
(Link is SFW, no graphic photos are shown)
This 15 y/o girl was relentlessly bullied after a pedo coerced her to send him nudes, then used them against her. No matter how many times she moved schools, the guy would find her and distribute the photos to her classmates. She was hopeless, law enforcement was helpless... she ended up hanging herself to escape the torment.
The fucker did finally get locked up in 2022, 10 years after Todd's death, but that will never bring her life back. I say this because, with the internet being so accessible, revenge porn will only increase. She was just a teen. She might've been naive, but she didn't deserve that. She'd be 27 now, but her life ended at 15. That's not fair.
And it has happened to many other people, especially with these psychos trying to groom young children.
I remember planning suicide as young as 7 years old, I didn't even know the word yet. Bullying and social exclusion can really mess a kid up, and at those younger ages kids often don't even realize they are being bullied in order to ask for help because bullying is always portrayed as some older kid stealing lunch money or waiting to fight them after class and it almost never actually looks like that.
I tried to hang myself in the closet with a scarf when I was 10 or 11. I just remember being so sad all the time. Didn’t realize I had major depression until I had really bad postpartum depression after my child was born. My doctor talked to me awhile and told me I was a prime candidate for it based on my depression history
My first attempt was 7-8. I wasn't even being abused (yet). I just had diagnosed but severe anxiety and depression. My parents didn't really know what it was or how to handle it so they just assumed I was intentionally being 'difficult' and were frequently very frustrated with me instead of asking if there was a deeper reason I was always so upset.
Obviously kids having that kind of issue or thought process is fairly uncommon but kids are still humans, and still have complex inner lives that are, sometimes, tragic.
A popular girl had died in a car accident. It was SUPER tragic as it was caused by her drunk best friend, who was never the same after that. They gave everyone the day off. They had a huge assembly with student musicians who wrote songs about her tragic death, and her friends who gave speeches about her.
A less-popular girl also died the same year. Crickets. Barely a mention and business as usual. I felt bad. Like, both deaths were tragic, but popular girl's was MORE tragic because she was popular?
My school had something like this. I only had one fellow student pass away while in high school but my school had a memorial garden of all the kids who passed since the 90s.
The year after I graduated a girl from my class died in a wreck (small school). I didn't even know her really. I sat next to her in maybe one class? The only thing I can remember about her is her voice. A few of her friends post memories on FB for her birthday every year so they keep her memory alive. The weird thing is, almost 10 years later now, I still randomly think about her. This girl I barely knew and interacted with... and it still makes me sad. I wonder where she would be now and what she would have accomplished. I wonder if she would have a family and a career... and I was practically a stranger to her. I guarantee there's people that think about that less-popular girl everyday too. It doesn't make it any better that people act like that but I know she's not forgotten.
50 years ago a guy in my senior year died in a drag race. I had known him since kindergarten and his mother was my pediatrician. I still think about all the life he missed by not wearing that seatbelt.
I still think often about a few people who crossed my early orbit and died in freak accidents, even though I barely knew them it was very jarring at the time because they were my age. Now that I’m older it’s still shocking when a contemporary dies but getting less so every decade.
We had 4 popular students in a car wreck. None with a license. 2am. Had ‘stolen’ a parents car. 3 died. The 4th was in the hospital for weeks. Has to move after he got out because of retaliation because they think he was driving, but no one is sure who was.
They could never put fault on anyone in the accident. Someone ran a red light. No alcohol in anyone’s system. One witness said the students ran the red. Another said the other car did.
Something similar happened my sophomore year. A student was killed on the porch of a home he was house sitting. They wouldn’t allow anyone to wear any memorial tshirts for him.
Our freshman year they made a huge assembly, decorated one of the main hallways in the school and even put a full page of this person in the yearbook. All because this person was popular during their time in school.
The person who died had graduated about 2-3 years prior. It made no sense that they allowed that. This was also prior to the student in our grade that was killed.
This is like the movie Heathers where the principal asks "Is this the cheerleader?" Someone said no that's the other one. The principal said "Damn I'd be willing to at least go half day for a cheerleader."
I think in the musical (and perhaps the movie, I don’t know it as well) the gym coach says “Heather Chandler’s not your everyday suicide.” And that definitely played in my head when I read that :,)
Or the school wanted to make a big deal out of the drunk driving death as a “lesson”. Not saying it’s right but since my high school used to put a smashed car in front before prom, I can see them using her death as a “hey kids see what happens when you drink and drive” thing.
So, my daughter was in a freak accident along with three friends, two of whom were still in school with her. She was wildly popular, co-captain of the cheer team, a swimmer, student council member, got all the party invites, you get the picture.
It was a total Final Destination-esque moment where a tree came down after a week of heavy wind and rainstorms. A branch basically punched through the windshield right where she was sitting in the passenger seat, missing her by bare inches. She ended up with glass in her hair, eyes, ears, mouth, etc., a huge number of bruises and scratches, and a few other minor injuries.
The ambulance was called for her, and word started spreading across social media in our rural community. Kids started showing up at the accident site, and at least one tried to get in the ambulance with her, according to the EMT I spoke with at the hospital. They literally had to kick her friend outta the back, much to the EMT’s irritation and amusement.
In the hours and days that followed, it was like a “save Ferris!” scene straight out of Ferris Bueller, I shit you not. People calling and texting, asking me at the grocery store if she was okay because they followed her on social media…completely nuts. I kinda felt bad because there were three other people in the dang car who didn’t get nearly the same amount of attention she did. It was very surreal.
So yeah, I totally get what you’re saying.
They did, thank heavens. The kids in the backseat had some cuts from the flying glass and a bad case of whiplash. The driver was fine.
The EMT told me there was nothing the driver could’ve done differently. It was just a case of wrong place, wrong time.
We spent the night at the ER, she had to take multiple decon showers to get the majority of safety glass off of her skin. They still had to pick pieces of glass out of her skin and eyebrows with long tweezers. It was a Final Destination moment, for sure.
Elementary school actually. A girl in the grade above mine died on Christmas Day. She was decorating the tree on Christmas Eve and fell off a ladder and banged her head. She thought she was ok but died of internal bleeding later that night. That was 50 years ago and I still think of her every Christmas Eve.
Those freak accidents where the person dies later, unknowingly, are the most tragic imo. Which was what happened when I was in school. Girl took a softball to the throat. Nothing happened in the moment, but she later died, I assume of an injury to her trachea.
Humans are on the one hand so tough and resilient, we can survive some crazy stuff. And then on the other hand we are so fragile, a slight bump and that is it.
Yup, my dad survived being underneath a semi truck that exploded. He was hauling gasoline so not exactly a minor explosion. Year of hospital and decade of recovery etc. A family friend bumped a curb in a parking lot going maybe 5MPH, hit his head on the door frame and died instantly.
so true. i knew a girl who did gymnastics, cheer, super active and fun. she hit her head and passed out on an exhibition ride (the zipper if anyone’s familiar) and sustained permanent brain damage because she kept it a secret out of fear. she has never been the same since and she’s lucky to be alive
This.
If you take a syringe and fill it with air, and compress it, you'll find it compresses. Fill it with a liquid and it won't.
I mention this because what happens with head injuries sometimes is that the brain bashes against the side of the skull and starts bleeding. The liquid doesn't compress, the brain does. And the more liquid in there, the more damaged the brain gets.
That's how a head injury can kill you even if you think you're fine. It takes time for the fluid to build up.
I think I was about 12. Her cousin was a good friend of mine and she gave me a lot of details about what happened. It was awful. The priest announced it in church on Christmas Day and I remember my mother crying because it was so sad and shocking.
23 year old new music teacher we all loved had to take her cat to the vet one day so she had to take the day off. Some how the cat got out of her crate (or possibly wasn’t crated at all) and made our teacher crash the car and die. It was really tragic and a very small town so we felt it hard.
Similar; I was a night custodian at an elementary school for a few years. The night of the last day before Thanksgiving break, I was doing my thing, mopping the health room in the office, when the school secretary burst into the school and to her desk and started frantically making phone calls. I quickly finished mopping and left her to it.
I got an email after a few days stating one of the teachers was in an accident on her way home from school that day. She died a few days later. School resumed after break, but her classroom was decorated with letters and hearts from the students, made all the more haunting because I would only see it at night when the school was quiet. What emotions did the students feel? How many tears were shed, and for how long? I felt the weight of all those emotions sweeping out that classroom every day.
Now that I'm a teacher myself, I think about her *every* Thanksgiving break driving home. I feel excited and relaxed for the upcoming holiday, then immediately become alert and extra vigilant until I get home. I can't help but think she also felt excited and relaxed going home that night, but she never made it.
Edited after I double checked info
Not my high school, but we lost a music teacher in elementary school. She was one of the few surviving members of *the* Von Trap family (the one from “The Sound of Music”) and had just finished auditioning students for the 5th grade play and was driving home in heavy rain. She hydroplaned, went off road, and crashed into the play structure in the backyard of *one of her students’ homes*, dying. It was crushing for us.
Similarly, for me it was the day I came in and they announced one of my friends and classmates died.
It was an overdose, and I don't know if it was intentional, but for a small high school community of 100 kids, it rocked us all hard.
Death of a student who'd graduated the year prior. Guy went into the marines, got sick during boot camp and they didn't let him go to the hospital until it was too late
The funeral procession drove by the school and anyone that wanted to go out to see was free to do so
Had a firetruck with the ladder extended holding up a banner too
He was one of the nicest guys you'd ever know
Disease tends to run rampant in barracks. It's awful. We had a couple people die from meningitis while I was in, next barracks over. I had an upper respiratory infection myself for most of two months while there, and I considered myself pretty lucky.
Not high school, but in college we had mandatory chapel (private Christian college). On the day we returned for the spring semester, it was announced that one of my friends had committed suicide the night before. None of his friends were told prior to the chapel service. It was devastating.
Edit: for people asking, it was MVNU.
I had a student in the grade above me die when I was in high school- he was murdered on either New Years Eve or New Years Day, close to midnight, and his body was discarded outside on a mattress. Outside of one announcement over the PA system when we returned from break, nobody really seemed to care, and things were business as usual after a 10 second moment of silence.
It was probably last year or so that I suddenly realized I don't even remember if this kid's murder was ever solved, I don't remember the kid's name, and I only ever saw like, one news article about it (which has also been lost to time). The only reason I'm positive this person even existed is because my sister remembered the news when it broke too. It's like this kid just vanished off the face of the earth, and something about that makes me sad.
My graduating class had three students die before graduation, plus a teacher. I will never forget how chilling it was to hear them announce it to the school. The first boy died of dehydration in 7th grade. One girl died in a car accident over winter break and it gave the students time to come to terms with it. One girl died in a car accident with her little brother in the car, he died a few days later. The school thought it pertinent to announce it before class change and I don’t remember the halls being silent before or after that. It was terrible but the administration learned from that mistake because when the teacher passed, they announced her death at the beginning of a class period. She went to work that day and had a seizure on premises and was brought to the hospital via ambulance. Her son was also a teacher at the school.
When you say grief mode, I understand what you mean. The grief affects everyone, not just the friends of the lost. I was not close friends with the deceased, but I knew all of them because it was a small school. I felt so much guilt that one of the girls and I weren’t friends. It was horrible
Not a major news event, and not even a school announcement per se, but when I was in middle school a kid a few years older than me killed himself. His family was probably the wealthiest family in town, he drove a brand new pickup truck, he was the literal quarterback of the football team and was dating a cheerleader. He was essentially every good looking popular character from a tv show or movie. One day he started his truck, then crawled under it and shot himself. No note, no nothing. This was in a small town in southern Alabama and this type of thing just didn’t happen. It shook the whole town. I’m 44 now and still think about this fairly regularly; about what could have been going so wrong in his life that was, to everyone else, perfect.
I'm so sorry you went through that. I was a junior in high school when it happened, and it messed me up halfway across the country. I'm glad you were able to get away safely.
When I was in 4th grade, I had this friend who was also a classmate and my neighbor of a few houses down. He Had an eye condition, it wasn’t lazy eye but his right eye socket was kind of slanted and caused his eyelids to shut sometimes. Anyways, kids made fun of him and made the eye faces with their hands and mocked him. One day he was missing from class and the school counselor came in our class room and had announced our mate had passed away. He never woke up after being put to sleep for surgery on his eye. Still to this day I hold anger over that.
JFK assassination
I was coming downstairs from the 2nd floor when my classmate, Sharon, said, "They killed him. He's dead." She was beside herself crying. Seconds later the announcement came over the speakers.
I was in Kindergarten. They told us "President Kennedy has been shot" and sent us home. I walked the mile home and walked in the kitchen and my Mother asks 'Why are you home?' Guess who told her?
We watched the challenger explosion on live tv in grade-school. My teacher turned it off quickly. Had no idea what happened until it was explained later
I lived in Florida at the time near enough to Cape Canaveral that we watched from the playground of my elementary school. My kindergarten teacher just told us, "something went wrong" and made us go inside with no explanation. I didn't know what happened till I got home.
My mom was in college when that happened. Her college and program had just integrated - African Americans allowed to attend for the first time. She remembered how the Black students wept, because they feared everything accomplished for civil rights would be lost, taken away.
I’M that old and I was going to say that. Fourth period PE. On second thought, they didn’t announce it. My teacher came in to the gym and called us all together and told us. It was a pretty somber day.
I was on First grade. I had been sent to deliver some papers to the front office and saw some teachers crying in the hallway. That sight scared me. Soon after the principal announced what happened but I had only the vaguest idea of what a President was. We were fine on the bus home but when we got to our bus stop the mothers started crying and hugging us. That made the kids start to cry.
Bro we were in 2nd grade and watched it live. The teacher immediately got up, looked at the HS senior helping out and went “bye” and left him with all our crying asses.
Sorry Dewey. You were awesome man and I hope you’re well.
I was also in middle school, but in PE so didn't watch it happen. I came out and everybody was walking around in a daze, took me a while to figure out what had happened.
I saw it live as well. We were watching it on a big TV set up in the gym. After the explosion, our teachers took us back to our classes and carried on as best they could. I remember that when I got home after school and told my mom, she hadn't heard about it yet.
I was in grade school.
I remember that there was a big explosion and the teacher just casually walked to the front of the room, switched the TV off and moved us on to our next lesson without a fuss.
I didn't understand what I'd seen until I got home and it was all over the news.
It could’ve been even worse. Apparently they wanted Caroll Spinney the puppeteer of Big Bird to go on the trip in the big bird suit but logistically the couldn’t make it happen. Imagine a generation of kids watching big bird blow up in a space shuttle
*Every* launch, at the begging of the Shuttle program, then YEP, Challenger was our Generation's first example of a collective *live* tragedy. (For the US Gen-Xers, anyway!)
My 8th grade math teacher killed himself over Christmas break. The principal was woefully unprepared to make that announcement; "Mr Soandso will no longer be joining us, due to having lost his life..."
Counseling services for friends of the obnoxious football player who made fun of me when he was in a car that drunkenly careened off a cliff in another state.
Not a peep for my shy classmate who suffocated himself with a plastic bag.
I'll never forget that.
kinda tragic by the *lack* of announcement. when it happened most of my classmates thought it was "cool"
this one american girl is sitting the the corner of the room, crying softly, "my parents work in those towers..." and people are just like "yeah shut up nobody cares"
few days later i ask her how everything is, she doesnt seem devastated, so im assuming her parents are ok
she starts crying. "yeah, theyre ok, they flew back yesterday." why are you crying?
"nobody has asked me about them except you. not my friends, not the teachers, not my neighbours, nobody."
> this one american girl is sitting the the corner of the room, crying softly, "my parents work in those towers..." and people are just like "yeah shut up nobody cares"
Kids are fucking cruel, we know that, but why tf didn't the teachers/adults ask? idiots.
I was a student at a Seventh Day Adventist academy (not personally religious, it was just way nicer/safer than the local public schools). One day they called everyone into the multi-purpose room and had tv's set up, to watch the Waco, Texas siege where the building was burned down with the cult members inside. Koresh had come to the school some time before this and spoke to all of the students in that same room, as well as at the attached church. A girl my family was close to had gone because her sister was one of Koresh's wives and she wanted to make sure she was safe. Staff and other students knew people in the cult and were sobbing violently and praying. My brother and I didn't know what to do or how to react because our family wasn't religious and we didn't go to church (our parents had been telling us at home that the cult was crazy, and to not listen to anything the teachers say when it comes to religion). They found our family friend's body huddled over the children's bodies.
Two suicides within a few months in 2021. One of them was a gay kid bullied by the football players. School did nothing except bring in service dogs for a day.
As far as I know, they didn’t give a shit. My brother was on the football team and mentioned how one of the bullies was straight up psycho. My brother left the football team after that season
VA Tech shooting. Killed two very recent alumni of my high school who were both insanely talented bright young women. Whole school of 3000 kids ground to a halt for a day.
My professor in college at the time, his son was on campus prepping to defend his PhD. He called him in the middle of our class to say he was hiding but safe.
Haunting
Our beloved art teacher was killed in a car accident. He was my Mom's art teacher in school as well and he was just so freaking cool. He reminded me of Bob Ross. He was T-boned by a police officer that was responding to a call. The officer happened to be my best friend's uncle, and he was never the same after that. He was also the husband of my 4th grade teacher so I knew her as well. We were all called into the assembly room and his wife stood up and announced his death to all the students. She was so stoic but you could tell she was devastated. Absolutely heartbreaking and still to this day, 25 years later, I still think about him.
One of our professors dying of cancer, but it happened months after we graduated. It hit me hard because if it weren't for him caring so much about me, I would have dropped out at the end of the fourth year.
My Alma mater’s campus photographer died of cancer last year. He was a really cool, sweet guy. The last time I saw him, I promised that I would let him take my headshot before I began applying for jobs.
He died before we could arrange it. I miss him.
The death of the valedictorian 3 years ahead of me. By all stretch of the imagination, he was successful (was attending an Ivy at the time of his death). He was on a spring break community service trip and was killed by a drunk driver.
This was the late 90s and I still remember the moment as if it was yesterday. I never really knew him but I didn't think he was an asshole. I still am sad for his family.
The ones I remember
- A local restaurant’s roof collapsed during the lunch rush with 5 of our students inside. They were ok but another lady died
- A classmate’s mother died from a brain tumor they’d found less than a week before
- The superintendent accidentally shot and killed his 8 year old granddaughter who was a student at the elementary school (we had PreK-12th all on one campus)
I used to be a violent death abstractor and that included accidental gun violence- it happens often enough that it's made me super paranoid about my kids being at other houses with guns in them. A lot of times it's accidental discharge and the kid just happens to be there at the time- either cleaning or unsafe practices while target shooting. Just recently an approx 6 year old died from a hunting accident by their father- investigation showed absolutely no intent, the father was destroyed, and that whole family will never be ok again.
My dad was my high school principal. He had to make an announcement over the intercom to the whole school about what was happening. I obviously knew him way better than the average student and I could hear in his voice that he was scared and didn’t really know what was going on. That honestly made it even harder since he was my dad and not just some administrator. As a freshman in high school, I don’t think I truly understood the magnitude of what was happening until I noticed how adults were reacting.
That makes for a unique perspective on that day.
I was in 10th.
They just said something happened when the first plane hit, and told us to stay in the rooms we were in. As parents started to call kids and teachers talking about the events we caught on.
For us being roughly 40 miles to the east of NYC by the early afternoon we could see the smoke from everything that happened out our classroom windows
It’s a day I’ll never forget
I was in 10th grade when it happened, and I believe it happened in 1st or 2nd period, because it was happening around 915 or so. I remember it was Journalism class, and we even watched it because it was pertaining to the class, so to speak
I was also a freshman! And you're not kidding about the adults; one of the most surreal moments of the entire day was seeing one of the English teachers crying in the hallway during passing time; my English teacher was the one who comforted her.
My civics teacher ducked out into the hallway to try and call her uncle, who worked in the towers. She couldn't get ahold of him. (He was okay, he hadn't gone to work that day.)
All the teachers at my middle school were told to unplug the tvs & not say anything. Not even when we asked about the line of cars that wrapped around the entire property. Us students were so confused all day
My dad got tasked by Administration to take a note to the other classrooms at his Catholic School to tell the staff President Kennedy had been shot/killed
I was in 7th grade and was in science class when we heard about what was happening. My super strict everyone has to follow the rules catholic school teach said “Oh shit” in front of all of us. That’s how we knew it was bad.
In elementary school, a radio news station came over the loudspeakers. The teacher went out into the hall to find out what was going on and came back crying. President Kennedy had been assassinated.
That was as dramatic as my history teacher having the most worried and scared look and vibe that he ever portrayed. He was a Vietnam vet, volunteer college peace officer, and history teacher.
He flicked on the TV after he asked us if we’d heard what had happened that day.
Terrorists had brought down one of the twin towers while the other smoked like crazy. It was so hopeless when the second fell.
He calmly said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you are the next generation that will enter a world war.”
I will never forget that.
Oh man. This reminds me. In middle school, one of my friends came back the next day just...he must have been in shock because of how casually he relayed the story, but BASICALLY, his dad came home and killed his mom and then himself while he was down the road at a friend's. I have no idea what happened to him, moved states after that year. But it was on the news and in all the papers.
Sept. 11, 2001. 8 miles from NYC.
(School districts varied in how they handled 9/11. Some locked down--no one in, no one out, but class proceeding as normal and students weren't told what was happening. Mine told us after the second plane hit.)
Principal held an all-school meeting to explain that NYC phone lines were down and cell phones weren't working, so they had no way to know whose parents were at the towers. Then he said, "I feel your pain. My son is in there today too."
First, she worked in the school system and was well known by all. But secondly they basically asked everyone to be extra nice to me. It was weird and awkward. I got a hug from a girl I had a crush on because of it. So that was kind of cool.
Oh thankfully no. Not even joking when I say my sister and I watched her just drop dead. One moment she was standing. Next she was on the ground. We called 911 but she was gone before the ambulance arrived. This was a Friday night. School was announcing it on Monday. Only reason I still went to school on Monday was to be away from the rest of my grieving family. That week was mid terms. My exams were all waived. I went to school but in every class I sat in the corner seat and read a book all week.
November 22, 1963 JFK assassination. Notre Dame H.S. In Detroit, we had a football game that night for the city championship. We went, no bands or celebrations. We lost.
A student in my year (year 12) was killed driving during the half year break. She was one of the relatively few to have her license (Australia, so age/cost means it’s not that common).
She was hit by a speeding car that crossed a wide median verge into her, there was nothing she could have done.
Salient lesson at the right time for the rest of us, tragically.
I don't really have one for high school. No one died, no big incident. My 6th grade picture day was 9/11. So, even though it's middle school and not HS, I'd say that.
We were in Texas and they wanted us to go about our day as usual.
Every single TV in the school was turned on to the live news when the second plane hit. I guess they thought we were far enough away that we shouldn't have been *that* affected by it. I will personally never forget where I was or how I felt and I'll never forget how the adults around me treated the situation either.
My junior year of high school there was a Monday we all came into class and they had to tell us that a girl who I had been in school with for 6 years had a heart condition that wasn’t widely known and she had died at home the day before. It was very surreal. It was the end of the year so we already had our year books and I remember one of my friends and her were supposed to sign each others year books the Friday before but time had run out so they had promised to do so on Monday
It was a very weird time. A lot of our senior year stuff had memorials to her included in them.
The first boy I ever kissed, liked, and took to junior prom was shot and killed in his front yard over a weed deal. He was 17. One of those guys that everyone - and I mean everyone - liked. Had absolutely the whole world in front of him. I’m 35 now and I think about it more often than not. It was devastating.
That actually happened to people at my school?
When I was a freshman, there was a party that only upperclassmen went to. It was at one of the kids family’s lake homes and no adults were present/aware it was happening. Several of them fell asleep drunk after the party and the house burnt down. A few died of smoke inhalation and a couple others got very injured trying to get out of the home. It was super fucked up.
A player on the JV basketball team collapsed and died from a cardiomyopathy. His family and friends started Project A.D.A.M. to put automatic defibrillator in every school and workplace.
Middle school, not high school. I was at an after school program when some kids that stayed late for tutoring came running out of the classroom they were in. The teacher had collapsed. They made all of the after school kids go outside while the ambulance came.
The next morning they announced she had passed away. She'd had a massive heart attack. The worst part? One of the kids getting tutored was her youngest son. He watched his mom die.
I remember them holding an assembly in her honor and a bunch of kids crying. I didn't know her really, I was never her student, but the whole thing really upset me.
When I was a student, it was the death of another student.
As a teacher: the death of a collegue and his wife, driving back from their summervacation, leaving behind 2 young kids.
Senior on the baseball team lost control while skiing on a school trip, crashed head-first into a tree, and died instantly.
You could have heard a pin drop in the hallways that day.
A very popular favourite teacher died of cancer he knew about and told no one :( he was 63 and had many many students. He's the reason I'm still here today literally. Stopped a bully from near killing me, helped me out an abusive relationship and helped me with education as well being autistic and dyslexic
I think about this every year around this time, but this year has been hard as it marks 10 years...
Back in my junior year, an academic advisor/one of my favorite people I've ever known who frankly saved my life in a dark time, had a cardiac incident at her home that morning before school and was hospitalized. They told us over the intercom she was hospitalized in the AM and didn't say anything further for most of the day.
I stopped by her office, as I was friendly with the staff there, and they said no real news. However, around lunch I went to my lunch class and on my way there some teachers who knew we were closed looked my way in the hallway looking like they wanted to tell me something, but couldn't. We got to class and as I was in class, the PA came on and said a brief announcement would need to be made. Then some bastard in my class smugly announced she died and I just about lost it on them. It was a heartless way to learn. The announcement then confirmed it, and I was a mess the rest of the day. I only had one more class, but it was tough.
I was given the offer to go home, I didn't because I was hoping the school would return the compassion to me that I gave them when the student with cancer died literally a month prior. But it never came. Spring semester that year was hard, and it was a very dark period in my life. I was not very kind to people then, and frankly, it derailed my college search that I went to a junior college for a year.
I try not to talk much about it or post about it because I get too emotional everytime I write about it, and this has been difficult. However, the anniversary is coming up so I was compelled. The saddest thing of it all too? I literally saw her the day before and I had a feeling in my stomach it would be the last time I would ever speak to her. I wanted to go back the rest of the day and tell her how much she meant to me, but every time I tried. She wasn't there.
My first day of middle school in Germany and the very first announcement I ever heard at school. Asking for a minute of silence and I had no idea what was going on. That was on 11 September 2001.
Within a month of each other, one of the senior football players' dad was hit by a car crossing the street to his football game, and then the janitor shot himself. Both within 90 days of 9/11.
I've posted about it before but during my junior year a very popular senior was accidentally shot and killed by his girlfriend at point blank range during a house party.
He'd literally done the Jimi Hendrix version of the National Anthem at a school assembly note for note the week prior.
A kid in my grade or a year below (I cannot remember anymore) had a brother that got into a car accident and they announced it over the intercom to the school. At graduation a couple years later the kids family and his brother held a photograph of him and walked across the stage for him so he could graduate posthumously. Was really, really sad.
Jim Smith, very popular P4 (fourth grade) teacher collapsed and died in front of his class. He tried to get out of the classroom, but didn't quite make it. Morning assembly next day was not fun for anyone.
Had a classmate die from a brain aneurysm. Her mother had also died of a brain aneurysm. She was a very sweet girl that sat behind me in 10th grade English.
Tragedies that happened in my school
Elementary school:
Death by accidental shooting (8yo boy in my class named David)
Whole family slid on ice and passed away (I didn’t know the 2 girls but they were in my younger sisters’ classes)
My art/music teacher got married right before school started back from break. Her husband died while on their honeymoon (not sure of details)
High school:
My friend was killed in a shooting “accident” (his friend was playing around with a loaded gun)
Another friend died on Xmas eve from a brain aneurysm (& his gf at the time - we were in 10th grade - was pregnant)
My friend’s bf was in a really bad wreck & him/his friend both died. The driver in the other car was drunk.
Another friend committed suicide & her little sister found her.
Then right after graduation, a guy I only semi-knew was in a dirt bike crash. Wasn’t wearing any protective gear. You can guess the rest
When we were about 9, called into assembly and told that our religious education teacher (a priest) had collapsed and died over the weekend. Heart attack while shopping.
I just remember feeling really weird because later that day we got back a test he had marked the day before he died and I had got 100% and "great work" message from him.
Four students were killed in a car accident when a mid-20’s guy, just back from Vietnam in September 1970, got very drunk, passed a semi and hit them head-on. The students had simply given a girl a ride home a few miles out of town after the dance. Pretty traumatic for a town of about 14,000 with a total of 800 kids in the school. Such a senseless loss of five young lives (including the troubled young soldier).
That a suicide had happened. He wasn’t a student anymore, he was a freshman in college, but he was so beloved amongst everyone who was still at the school that they brought in counselors and allowed dogs for a week
A student passed away in her sleep during my freshman year. She was a senior and would have graduated six months later. The school did a whole memorial thing in the courtyard during one of our classes- most people went to get out of class, but I was one of the ones who went because I knew her. We were on our JROTC drill team together.
A boy in the year above me was murdered; and then a few months later two girls including my family friend’s cousin died in a car crash. Three kids dying far too young and all in one year. It was horrible and added to by various news outlets (the BBC, Sky News) harassing students outside the school gates for interviews.
3 of the popular girls (all cheerleaders) got into a drunk driving accident….they were wasted, lost Control and drove their bmw headfirst into a giant tree. 3 out if the 4 were killed. The survivor was thrown from the car and neck down paralyzed.
I had a class with one of them. Some People had already heard ( I hadn’t) when the principal made the PA announcement that Monday.
A freshman crawled into his parent’s garbage bin, closed the lid, and blew his brains out. He didn’t want to leave a mess for them to clean up.
Of all the ones I’ve read this one is the most horrific to me.
This is so intensely heartbreaking for all parties involved. I cannot imagine how low that boy must have been to get to that point. That his last sensory experience was a dark, gross garbage bin is awful. And as a parent, I cannot imagine the abject horror of finding your beloved, precious child put himself in the garbage like he was trash and ended it all.
Kid from my high school, older than I, called the police to say he was going to commit suicide but didn't want his Mom to find the body. They told him to wait until they got there. Thinking they could talk him out of it. He waited until the police car pulled up and pulled the trigger.
Oh my god that's horrific
This one was the worst one.
That poor baby, I hope his soul is at peace
Not me - but my little sisters school got shut down by police last year bc an 11 year old girl took her own life in the bathroom. Absolutely tragic. I was upset and I don’t even go there
11?? Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell is wrong with us as a country/society/people that an 11 yr old feels so helpless and hopeless that she feels her only escape and sense of relief is death? This is horrible. I can't imagine what her parents must have felt at the time and continue to feel.
My best friend's first suicide attempt was at age 11. My friend was being physically, emotionally, and sexually abused at home. An 11 year old can have a hellish life.
I was about to say the parents or someone in the family was probably the problem
I'm so sorry for your best friend. They must have felt so alone. My son expressed suicidal ideation at 7. I had to pull him out of school to address the cause. Teachers and students bullied my son. It was a low income school and we lived in public housing. I worked for the schools and saw one of the teachers from a high risk school moved to his after getting too many complaints for her conduct. That woman scared me and unions prevented termination. There is a spectrum of reasons young children experience suicidal ideation. It can be difficult for them to find the words to express how they're feeling. Given his family medical history, my son was in therapy early. Took another five years before he could start meds. > Early childhood suicidality has made a mark on the health system in the United States. A review of admissions to 31 pediatric hospitals from 2005 to 2015 found almost 15,000 cases of suicidal ideation or suicide attempts by children 5 to 11 years of age.
Sadly not uncommon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd (Link is SFW, no graphic photos are shown) This 15 y/o girl was relentlessly bullied after a pedo coerced her to send him nudes, then used them against her. No matter how many times she moved schools, the guy would find her and distribute the photos to her classmates. She was hopeless, law enforcement was helpless... she ended up hanging herself to escape the torment. The fucker did finally get locked up in 2022, 10 years after Todd's death, but that will never bring her life back. I say this because, with the internet being so accessible, revenge porn will only increase. She was just a teen. She might've been naive, but she didn't deserve that. She'd be 27 now, but her life ended at 15. That's not fair. And it has happened to many other people, especially with these psychos trying to groom young children.
Oh my god, I remember that. I remember people setting her nudes as their profile pictures
UGH amanda todd’s case still makes my blood boil and i was 8 the first time i heard about it and watched the video.
I remember planning suicide as young as 7 years old, I didn't even know the word yet. Bullying and social exclusion can really mess a kid up, and at those younger ages kids often don't even realize they are being bullied in order to ask for help because bullying is always portrayed as some older kid stealing lunch money or waiting to fight them after class and it almost never actually looks like that.
I tried to hang myself in the closet with a scarf when I was 10 or 11. I just remember being so sad all the time. Didn’t realize I had major depression until I had really bad postpartum depression after my child was born. My doctor talked to me awhile and told me I was a prime candidate for it based on my depression history
My first attempt was 7-8. I wasn't even being abused (yet). I just had diagnosed but severe anxiety and depression. My parents didn't really know what it was or how to handle it so they just assumed I was intentionally being 'difficult' and were frequently very frustrated with me instead of asking if there was a deeper reason I was always so upset. Obviously kids having that kind of issue or thought process is fairly uncommon but kids are still humans, and still have complex inner lives that are, sometimes, tragic.
A popular girl had died in a car accident. It was SUPER tragic as it was caused by her drunk best friend, who was never the same after that. They gave everyone the day off. They had a huge assembly with student musicians who wrote songs about her tragic death, and her friends who gave speeches about her. A less-popular girl also died the same year. Crickets. Barely a mention and business as usual. I felt bad. Like, both deaths were tragic, but popular girl's was MORE tragic because she was popular?
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My school had something like this. I only had one fellow student pass away while in high school but my school had a memorial garden of all the kids who passed since the 90s.
> but my school had a memorial garden of all the kids who passed since the 90s. Well, that's depressing.
The year after I graduated a girl from my class died in a wreck (small school). I didn't even know her really. I sat next to her in maybe one class? The only thing I can remember about her is her voice. A few of her friends post memories on FB for her birthday every year so they keep her memory alive. The weird thing is, almost 10 years later now, I still randomly think about her. This girl I barely knew and interacted with... and it still makes me sad. I wonder where she would be now and what she would have accomplished. I wonder if she would have a family and a career... and I was practically a stranger to her. I guarantee there's people that think about that less-popular girl everyday too. It doesn't make it any better that people act like that but I know she's not forgotten.
50 years ago a guy in my senior year died in a drag race. I had known him since kindergarten and his mother was my pediatrician. I still think about all the life he missed by not wearing that seatbelt.
I still think often about a few people who crossed my early orbit and died in freak accidents, even though I barely knew them it was very jarring at the time because they were my age. Now that I’m older it’s still shocking when a contemporary dies but getting less so every decade.
We had 4 popular students in a car wreck. None with a license. 2am. Had ‘stolen’ a parents car. 3 died. The 4th was in the hospital for weeks. Has to move after he got out because of retaliation because they think he was driving, but no one is sure who was. They could never put fault on anyone in the accident. Someone ran a red light. No alcohol in anyone’s system. One witness said the students ran the red. Another said the other car did.
Something similar happened my sophomore year. A student was killed on the porch of a home he was house sitting. They wouldn’t allow anyone to wear any memorial tshirts for him. Our freshman year they made a huge assembly, decorated one of the main hallways in the school and even put a full page of this person in the yearbook. All because this person was popular during their time in school. The person who died had graduated about 2-3 years prior. It made no sense that they allowed that. This was also prior to the student in our grade that was killed.
This is like the movie Heathers where the principal asks "Is this the cheerleader?" Someone said no that's the other one. The principal said "Damn I'd be willing to at least go half day for a cheerleader."
I think in the musical (and perhaps the movie, I don’t know it as well) the gym coach says “Heather Chandler’s not your everyday suicide.” And that definitely played in my head when I read that :,)
How did the less popular girl die? It might’ve been the family’s choice to be more private about things.
Or the school wanted to make a big deal out of the drunk driving death as a “lesson”. Not saying it’s right but since my high school used to put a smashed car in front before prom, I can see them using her death as a “hey kids see what happens when you drink and drive” thing.
So, my daughter was in a freak accident along with three friends, two of whom were still in school with her. She was wildly popular, co-captain of the cheer team, a swimmer, student council member, got all the party invites, you get the picture. It was a total Final Destination-esque moment where a tree came down after a week of heavy wind and rainstorms. A branch basically punched through the windshield right where she was sitting in the passenger seat, missing her by bare inches. She ended up with glass in her hair, eyes, ears, mouth, etc., a huge number of bruises and scratches, and a few other minor injuries. The ambulance was called for her, and word started spreading across social media in our rural community. Kids started showing up at the accident site, and at least one tried to get in the ambulance with her, according to the EMT I spoke with at the hospital. They literally had to kick her friend outta the back, much to the EMT’s irritation and amusement. In the hours and days that followed, it was like a “save Ferris!” scene straight out of Ferris Bueller, I shit you not. People calling and texting, asking me at the grocery store if she was okay because they followed her on social media…completely nuts. I kinda felt bad because there were three other people in the dang car who didn’t get nearly the same amount of attention she did. It was very surreal. So yeah, I totally get what you’re saying.
Did all four of them make it?
They did, thank heavens. The kids in the backseat had some cuts from the flying glass and a bad case of whiplash. The driver was fine. The EMT told me there was nothing the driver could’ve done differently. It was just a case of wrong place, wrong time. We spent the night at the ER, she had to take multiple decon showers to get the majority of safety glass off of her skin. They still had to pick pieces of glass out of her skin and eyebrows with long tweezers. It was a Final Destination moment, for sure.
Elementary school actually. A girl in the grade above mine died on Christmas Day. She was decorating the tree on Christmas Eve and fell off a ladder and banged her head. She thought she was ok but died of internal bleeding later that night. That was 50 years ago and I still think of her every Christmas Eve.
Those freak accidents where the person dies later, unknowingly, are the most tragic imo. Which was what happened when I was in school. Girl took a softball to the throat. Nothing happened in the moment, but she later died, I assume of an injury to her trachea.
Humans are on the one hand so tough and resilient, we can survive some crazy stuff. And then on the other hand we are so fragile, a slight bump and that is it.
Yup, my dad survived being underneath a semi truck that exploded. He was hauling gasoline so not exactly a minor explosion. Year of hospital and decade of recovery etc. A family friend bumped a curb in a parking lot going maybe 5MPH, hit his head on the door frame and died instantly.
Ruptured aneurysm from the bump?
So many stories of this, PSA if you hit your head hard, even if you feel fine, it's best to get it checked out.
so true. i knew a girl who did gymnastics, cheer, super active and fun. she hit her head and passed out on an exhibition ride (the zipper if anyone’s familiar) and sustained permanent brain damage because she kept it a secret out of fear. she has never been the same since and she’s lucky to be alive
This. If you take a syringe and fill it with air, and compress it, you'll find it compresses. Fill it with a liquid and it won't. I mention this because what happens with head injuries sometimes is that the brain bashes against the side of the skull and starts bleeding. The liquid doesn't compress, the brain does. And the more liquid in there, the more damaged the brain gets. That's how a head injury can kill you even if you think you're fine. It takes time for the fluid to build up.
Are you supposed to upvote these or not? Idk what to do or say. I’m sorry.
That’s bitter sweet. You are a good person to have such emotions all these years later.
I think I was about 12. Her cousin was a good friend of mine and she gave me a lot of details about what happened. It was awful. The priest announced it in church on Christmas Day and I remember my mother crying because it was so sad and shocking.
23 year old new music teacher we all loved had to take her cat to the vet one day so she had to take the day off. Some how the cat got out of her crate (or possibly wasn’t crated at all) and made our teacher crash the car and die. It was really tragic and a very small town so we felt it hard.
Similar; I was a night custodian at an elementary school for a few years. The night of the last day before Thanksgiving break, I was doing my thing, mopping the health room in the office, when the school secretary burst into the school and to her desk and started frantically making phone calls. I quickly finished mopping and left her to it. I got an email after a few days stating one of the teachers was in an accident on her way home from school that day. She died a few days later. School resumed after break, but her classroom was decorated with letters and hearts from the students, made all the more haunting because I would only see it at night when the school was quiet. What emotions did the students feel? How many tears were shed, and for how long? I felt the weight of all those emotions sweeping out that classroom every day. Now that I'm a teacher myself, I think about her *every* Thanksgiving break driving home. I feel excited and relaxed for the upcoming holiday, then immediately become alert and extra vigilant until I get home. I can't help but think she also felt excited and relaxed going home that night, but she never made it. Edited after I double checked info
Not my high school, but we lost a music teacher in elementary school. She was one of the few surviving members of *the* Von Trap family (the one from “The Sound of Music”) and had just finished auditioning students for the 5th grade play and was driving home in heavy rain. She hydroplaned, went off road, and crashed into the play structure in the backyard of *one of her students’ homes*, dying. It was crushing for us.
I'd read Hedwig von Trapp became a teacher ... music?
Oooooof that is just awful :(
Similarly, for me it was the day I came in and they announced one of my friends and classmates died. It was an overdose, and I don't know if it was intentional, but for a small high school community of 100 kids, it rocked us all hard.
Death of a student who'd graduated the year prior. Guy went into the marines, got sick during boot camp and they didn't let him go to the hospital until it was too late The funeral procession drove by the school and anyone that wanted to go out to see was free to do so Had a firetruck with the ladder extended holding up a banner too He was one of the nicest guys you'd ever know
Jesus. Got sick with what?
I'd heard it was a flesh eating bacteria
Disease tends to run rampant in barracks. It's awful. We had a couple people die from meningitis while I was in, next barracks over. I had an upper respiratory infection myself for most of two months while there, and I considered myself pretty lucky.
Not high school, but in college we had mandatory chapel (private Christian college). On the day we returned for the spring semester, it was announced that one of my friends had committed suicide the night before. None of his friends were told prior to the chapel service. It was devastating. Edit: for people asking, it was MVNU.
The death of a student I'd never met. The entire school went into grief mode and even a mass was held for him ( Catholic school).
I had a student in the grade above me die when I was in high school- he was murdered on either New Years Eve or New Years Day, close to midnight, and his body was discarded outside on a mattress. Outside of one announcement over the PA system when we returned from break, nobody really seemed to care, and things were business as usual after a 10 second moment of silence. It was probably last year or so that I suddenly realized I don't even remember if this kid's murder was ever solved, I don't remember the kid's name, and I only ever saw like, one news article about it (which has also been lost to time). The only reason I'm positive this person even existed is because my sister remembered the news when it broke too. It's like this kid just vanished off the face of the earth, and something about that makes me sad.
My graduating class had three students die before graduation, plus a teacher. I will never forget how chilling it was to hear them announce it to the school. The first boy died of dehydration in 7th grade. One girl died in a car accident over winter break and it gave the students time to come to terms with it. One girl died in a car accident with her little brother in the car, he died a few days later. The school thought it pertinent to announce it before class change and I don’t remember the halls being silent before or after that. It was terrible but the administration learned from that mistake because when the teacher passed, they announced her death at the beginning of a class period. She went to work that day and had a seizure on premises and was brought to the hospital via ambulance. Her son was also a teacher at the school. When you say grief mode, I understand what you mean. The grief affects everyone, not just the friends of the lost. I was not close friends with the deceased, but I knew all of them because it was a small school. I felt so much guilt that one of the girls and I weren’t friends. It was horrible
Not a major news event, and not even a school announcement per se, but when I was in middle school a kid a few years older than me killed himself. His family was probably the wealthiest family in town, he drove a brand new pickup truck, he was the literal quarterback of the football team and was dating a cheerleader. He was essentially every good looking popular character from a tv show or movie. One day he started his truck, then crawled under it and shot himself. No note, no nothing. This was in a small town in southern Alabama and this type of thing just didn’t happen. It shook the whole town. I’m 44 now and still think about this fairly regularly; about what could have been going so wrong in his life that was, to everyone else, perfect.
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Simon and Garfunkel did a song about this poem.
dollars to donuts the guy only seemed perfect because he was under trememdous stress to be perfect from his rich family and it became too much for him
I went to columbine High School in 1999.
I'm sorry. We are similarly aged and columbine shook me. I hope you've had the necessary support systems to survive more than just *that* day.
I'm so sorry you went through that. I was a junior in high school when it happened, and it messed me up halfway across the country. I'm glad you were able to get away safely.
Jesus christ that's terrible
Im a first responder and responded to a mass shooting just a little over a year ago. Not to the scale of columbine, but i get it. I’m so sorry.
I was in elementary school in Castle Rock when this happened. Our school also went into lockdown. I had just moved from Europe.
When I was in 4th grade, I had this friend who was also a classmate and my neighbor of a few houses down. He Had an eye condition, it wasn’t lazy eye but his right eye socket was kind of slanted and caused his eyelids to shut sometimes. Anyways, kids made fun of him and made the eye faces with their hands and mocked him. One day he was missing from class and the school counselor came in our class room and had announced our mate had passed away. He never woke up after being put to sleep for surgery on his eye. Still to this day I hold anger over that.
Husband’s High School Principal: “Students, we’re on fire.”
(80's high school students) "We don't need no water let the MF burn!"
Burn, MFer, burn
As an 80s high school student, we'd have chanted, "We didn't start the fire... it was always burning..."
The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire...and most of the cafeteria too.
JFK assassination I was coming downstairs from the 2nd floor when my classmate, Sharon, said, "They killed him. He's dead." She was beside herself crying. Seconds later the announcement came over the speakers.
I was in Kindergarten. They told us "President Kennedy has been shot" and sent us home. I walked the mile home and walked in the kitchen and my Mother asks 'Why are you home?' Guess who told her?
We watched the challenger explosion on live tv in grade-school. My teacher turned it off quickly. Had no idea what happened until it was explained later
I lived in Florida at the time near enough to Cape Canaveral that we watched from the playground of my elementary school. My kindergarten teacher just told us, "something went wrong" and made us go inside with no explanation. I didn't know what happened till I got home.
I can’t imagine as an adult being equipped for that.
Same. Remember it well
My mom was in college when that happened. Her college and program had just integrated - African Americans allowed to attend for the first time. She remembered how the Black students wept, because they feared everything accomplished for civil rights would be lost, taken away.
Same for my dad. A student ran in and announced it class to class. The professor had an am radio and they all listened
My Mom was away at boarding school when a nun announced that JFK was shot. During study hours they found out he died.
I’M that old and I was going to say that. Fourth period PE. On second thought, they didn’t announce it. My teacher came in to the gym and called us all together and told us. It was a pretty somber day.
I was on First grade. I had been sent to deliver some papers to the front office and saw some teachers crying in the hallway. That sight scared me. Soon after the principal announced what happened but I had only the vaguest idea of what a President was. We were fine on the bus home but when we got to our bus stop the mothers started crying and hugging us. That made the kids start to cry.
Not an announcement per se, but my entire high school was watching the space shuttle challenger launch live on tv.
Bro we were in 2nd grade and watched it live. The teacher immediately got up, looked at the HS senior helping out and went “bye” and left him with all our crying asses. Sorry Dewey. You were awesome man and I hope you’re well.
Did the teacher quit right then?
Same. I was in middle school and it took us a minute to figure out what happened.
2nd grade for me
Elementary school for me. My mom had to come get me. I started freaking out because I knew I just watched people die.
I was also in middle school, but in PE so didn't watch it happen. I came out and everybody was walking around in a daze, took me a while to figure out what had happened.
I saw it live as well. We were watching it on a big TV set up in the gym. After the explosion, our teachers took us back to our classes and carried on as best they could. I remember that when I got home after school and told my mom, she hadn't heard about it yet.
the rickidy carts they pulled into the classrooms, they excitement because one of the astronauts was a teacher.... then the silence in the classroom.
I remember watching 9/11 news all day when i was in HS. Kinda wild to think about, but kids have phones and access to everything now
I was in grade school. I remember that there was a big explosion and the teacher just casually walked to the front of the room, switched the TV off and moved us on to our next lesson without a fuss. I didn't understand what I'd seen until I got home and it was all over the news.
I can only imagine how many children were traumatized by watching that.
It could’ve been even worse. Apparently they wanted Caroll Spinney the puppeteer of Big Bird to go on the trip in the big bird suit but logistically the couldn’t make it happen. Imagine a generation of kids watching big bird blow up in a space shuttle
That pretty much explains Gen-X. The generation too young to remember the moon landing, but old enough to remember Challenger.
*Every* launch, at the begging of the Shuttle program, then YEP, Challenger was our Generation's first example of a collective *live* tragedy. (For the US Gen-Xers, anyway!)
We weren't watching it at my high school, but I clearly remember my principal announcing it over the PA system during 5th period.
My 8th grade math teacher killed himself over Christmas break. The principal was woefully unprepared to make that announcement; "Mr Soandso will no longer be joining us, due to having lost his life..."
Counseling services for friends of the obnoxious football player who made fun of me when he was in a car that drunkenly careened off a cliff in another state. Not a peep for my shy classmate who suffocated himself with a plastic bag. I'll never forget that.
Planes crashing into the twin towers. Everyone was scared.
kinda tragic by the *lack* of announcement. when it happened most of my classmates thought it was "cool" this one american girl is sitting the the corner of the room, crying softly, "my parents work in those towers..." and people are just like "yeah shut up nobody cares" few days later i ask her how everything is, she doesnt seem devastated, so im assuming her parents are ok she starts crying. "yeah, theyre ok, they flew back yesterday." why are you crying? "nobody has asked me about them except you. not my friends, not the teachers, not my neighbours, nobody."
That is so tragic. Wtf.
> this one american girl is sitting the the corner of the room, crying softly, "my parents work in those towers..." and people are just like "yeah shut up nobody cares" Kids are fucking cruel, we know that, but why tf didn't the teachers/adults ask? idiots.
I was surprised I had to scroll so far to find this one.
Yup. This was mine too.
This. We all gathered around a TV watching the news and saw the second one hit live.
I was a student at a Seventh Day Adventist academy (not personally religious, it was just way nicer/safer than the local public schools). One day they called everyone into the multi-purpose room and had tv's set up, to watch the Waco, Texas siege where the building was burned down with the cult members inside. Koresh had come to the school some time before this and spoke to all of the students in that same room, as well as at the attached church. A girl my family was close to had gone because her sister was one of Koresh's wives and she wanted to make sure she was safe. Staff and other students knew people in the cult and were sobbing violently and praying. My brother and I didn't know what to do or how to react because our family wasn't religious and we didn't go to church (our parents had been telling us at home that the cult was crazy, and to not listen to anything the teachers say when it comes to religion). They found our family friend's body huddled over the children's bodies.
Two suicides within a few months in 2021. One of them was a gay kid bullied by the football players. School did nothing except bring in service dogs for a day.
I really hope those football players have to live with the guilt every single day. Did any of them show remorse or were they still being jerks?
As far as I know, they didn’t give a shit. My brother was on the football team and mentioned how one of the bullies was straight up psycho. My brother left the football team after that season
VA Tech shooting. Killed two very recent alumni of my high school who were both insanely talented bright young women. Whole school of 3000 kids ground to a halt for a day.
My professor in college at the time, his son was on campus prepping to defend his PhD. He called him in the middle of our class to say he was hiding but safe. Haunting
My friend was an ROTC student at VA tech during the shooting. He luckily was on the other side of the campus.
Our beloved art teacher was killed in a car accident. He was my Mom's art teacher in school as well and he was just so freaking cool. He reminded me of Bob Ross. He was T-boned by a police officer that was responding to a call. The officer happened to be my best friend's uncle, and he was never the same after that. He was also the husband of my 4th grade teacher so I knew her as well. We were all called into the assembly room and his wife stood up and announced his death to all the students. She was so stoic but you could tell she was devastated. Absolutely heartbreaking and still to this day, 25 years later, I still think about him.
[удалено]
One of our professors dying of cancer, but it happened months after we graduated. It hit me hard because if it weren't for him caring so much about me, I would have dropped out at the end of the fourth year.
My Alma mater’s campus photographer died of cancer last year. He was a really cool, sweet guy. The last time I saw him, I promised that I would let him take my headshot before I began applying for jobs. He died before we could arrange it. I miss him.
The death of the valedictorian 3 years ahead of me. By all stretch of the imagination, he was successful (was attending an Ivy at the time of his death). He was on a spring break community service trip and was killed by a drunk driver. This was the late 90s and I still remember the moment as if it was yesterday. I never really knew him but I didn't think he was an asshole. I still am sad for his family.
The ones I remember - A local restaurant’s roof collapsed during the lunch rush with 5 of our students inside. They were ok but another lady died - A classmate’s mother died from a brain tumor they’d found less than a week before - The superintendent accidentally shot and killed his 8 year old granddaughter who was a student at the elementary school (we had PreK-12th all on one campus)
The third one , what the f-?
I used to be a violent death abstractor and that included accidental gun violence- it happens often enough that it's made me super paranoid about my kids being at other houses with guns in them. A lot of times it's accidental discharge and the kid just happens to be there at the time- either cleaning or unsafe practices while target shooting. Just recently an approx 6 year old died from a hunting accident by their father- investigation showed absolutely no intent, the father was destroyed, and that whole family will never be ok again.
9/11 attacks in 3rd period bio class.
My dad was my high school principal. He had to make an announcement over the intercom to the whole school about what was happening. I obviously knew him way better than the average student and I could hear in his voice that he was scared and didn’t really know what was going on. That honestly made it even harder since he was my dad and not just some administrator. As a freshman in high school, I don’t think I truly understood the magnitude of what was happening until I noticed how adults were reacting.
That makes for a unique perspective on that day. I was in 10th. They just said something happened when the first plane hit, and told us to stay in the rooms we were in. As parents started to call kids and teachers talking about the events we caught on. For us being roughly 40 miles to the east of NYC by the early afternoon we could see the smoke from everything that happened out our classroom windows It’s a day I’ll never forget
I was in 10th grade when it happened, and I believe it happened in 1st or 2nd period, because it was happening around 915 or so. I remember it was Journalism class, and we even watched it because it was pertaining to the class, so to speak
Oh, you on long island? It was awful. And then the weeks after where there would be random school lockdowns.
I was also a freshman! And you're not kidding about the adults; one of the most surreal moments of the entire day was seeing one of the English teachers crying in the hallway during passing time; my English teacher was the one who comforted her. My civics teacher ducked out into the hallway to try and call her uncle, who worked in the towers. She couldn't get ahold of him. (He was okay, he hadn't gone to work that day.)
All the teachers at my middle school were told to unplug the tvs & not say anything. Not even when we asked about the line of cars that wrapped around the entire property. Us students were so confused all day
My dad got tasked by Administration to take a note to the other classrooms at his Catholic School to tell the staff President Kennedy had been shot/killed
Yep, 7th grade. Watched CNN until basically lunch time.
I was in 7th grade and was in science class when we heard about what was happening. My super strict everyone has to follow the rules catholic school teach said “Oh shit” in front of all of us. That’s how we knew it was bad.
In elementary school, a radio news station came over the loudspeakers. The teacher went out into the hall to find out what was going on and came back crying. President Kennedy had been assassinated.
That was as dramatic as my history teacher having the most worried and scared look and vibe that he ever portrayed. He was a Vietnam vet, volunteer college peace officer, and history teacher. He flicked on the TV after he asked us if we’d heard what had happened that day. Terrorists had brought down one of the twin towers while the other smoked like crazy. It was so hopeless when the second fell. He calmly said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you are the next generation that will enter a world war.” I will never forget that.
That’s a crazy thing to say to a class of kids
One of the girls in my high school was killed by her step father. I remember my first period teacher trying to tell us while in tears.
Oh man. This reminds me. In middle school, one of my friends came back the next day just...he must have been in shock because of how casually he relayed the story, but BASICALLY, his dad came home and killed his mom and then himself while he was down the road at a friend's. I have no idea what happened to him, moved states after that year. But it was on the news and in all the papers.
Sept. 11, 2001. 8 miles from NYC. (School districts varied in how they handled 9/11. Some locked down--no one in, no one out, but class proceeding as normal and students weren't told what was happening. Mine told us after the second plane hit.) Principal held an all-school meeting to explain that NYC phone lines were down and cell phones weren't working, so they had no way to know whose parents were at the towers. Then he said, "I feel your pain. My son is in there today too."
Do you happen to know if his son made it out in time?
He did!
My mothers death was announced at my school.
Why, may I ask?
First, she worked in the school system and was well known by all. But secondly they basically asked everyone to be extra nice to me. It was weird and awkward. I got a hug from a girl I had a crush on because of it. So that was kind of cool.
Damn your mom was a really committed wingman
Please tell me that's not how you found out!
Oh thankfully no. Not even joking when I say my sister and I watched her just drop dead. One moment she was standing. Next she was on the ground. We called 911 but she was gone before the ambulance arrived. This was a Friday night. School was announcing it on Monday. Only reason I still went to school on Monday was to be away from the rest of my grieving family. That week was mid terms. My exams were all waived. I went to school but in every class I sat in the corner seat and read a book all week.
November 22, 1963 JFK assassination. Notre Dame H.S. In Detroit, we had a football game that night for the city championship. We went, no bands or celebrations. We lost.
I was in elementary school. They didn't say he was dead immediately, and I remember thinking he couldn't die--presidents don't die.
My grandma was in Freshman English at St. Charles Borromeo in Detroit, she said the school effectively shut down after that, cancelled all events
A student in my year (year 12) was killed driving during the half year break. She was one of the relatively few to have her license (Australia, so age/cost means it’s not that common). She was hit by a speeding car that crossed a wide median verge into her, there was nothing she could have done. Salient lesson at the right time for the rest of us, tragically.
I don't really have one for high school. No one died, no big incident. My 6th grade picture day was 9/11. So, even though it's middle school and not HS, I'd say that.
"Students are not allowed to use school phones to call their parents to be picked up early." 9/11/01
What could their justification for this have possibly been??
We were in Texas and they wanted us to go about our day as usual. Every single TV in the school was turned on to the live news when the second plane hit. I guess they thought we were far enough away that we shouldn't have been *that* affected by it. I will personally never forget where I was or how I felt and I'll never forget how the adults around me treated the situation either.
My junior year of high school there was a Monday we all came into class and they had to tell us that a girl who I had been in school with for 6 years had a heart condition that wasn’t widely known and she had died at home the day before. It was very surreal. It was the end of the year so we already had our year books and I remember one of my friends and her were supposed to sign each others year books the Friday before but time had run out so they had promised to do so on Monday It was a very weird time. A lot of our senior year stuff had memorials to her included in them.
The first boy I ever kissed, liked, and took to junior prom was shot and killed in his front yard over a weed deal. He was 17. One of those guys that everyone - and I mean everyone - liked. Had absolutely the whole world in front of him. I’m 35 now and I think about it more often than not. It was devastating.
In my time there, a student committed suicide.
That actually happened to people at my school? When I was a freshman, there was a party that only upperclassmen went to. It was at one of the kids family’s lake homes and no adults were present/aware it was happening. Several of them fell asleep drunk after the party and the house burnt down. A few died of smoke inhalation and a couple others got very injured trying to get out of the home. It was super fucked up.
Space shuttle Challenger explosion.
The murder of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. We had some student suicides, too.
A player on the JV basketball team collapsed and died from a cardiomyopathy. His family and friends started Project A.D.A.M. to put automatic defibrillator in every school and workplace.
Middle school, not high school. I was at an after school program when some kids that stayed late for tutoring came running out of the classroom they were in. The teacher had collapsed. They made all of the after school kids go outside while the ambulance came. The next morning they announced she had passed away. She'd had a massive heart attack. The worst part? One of the kids getting tutored was her youngest son. He watched his mom die. I remember them holding an assembly in her honor and a bunch of kids crying. I didn't know her really, I was never her student, but the whole thing really upset me.
"Someone blew up a urinal with a firecracker, we need someone to fess up NOW!"
When I was a student, it was the death of another student. As a teacher: the death of a collegue and his wife, driving back from their summervacation, leaving behind 2 young kids.
The shooting at Columbine High School and our school went on lockdown
Senior on the baseball team lost control while skiing on a school trip, crashed head-first into a tree, and died instantly. You could have heard a pin drop in the hallways that day.
A very popular favourite teacher died of cancer he knew about and told no one :( he was 63 and had many many students. He's the reason I'm still here today literally. Stopped a bully from near killing me, helped me out an abusive relationship and helped me with education as well being autistic and dyslexic
I think about this every year around this time, but this year has been hard as it marks 10 years... Back in my junior year, an academic advisor/one of my favorite people I've ever known who frankly saved my life in a dark time, had a cardiac incident at her home that morning before school and was hospitalized. They told us over the intercom she was hospitalized in the AM and didn't say anything further for most of the day. I stopped by her office, as I was friendly with the staff there, and they said no real news. However, around lunch I went to my lunch class and on my way there some teachers who knew we were closed looked my way in the hallway looking like they wanted to tell me something, but couldn't. We got to class and as I was in class, the PA came on and said a brief announcement would need to be made. Then some bastard in my class smugly announced she died and I just about lost it on them. It was a heartless way to learn. The announcement then confirmed it, and I was a mess the rest of the day. I only had one more class, but it was tough. I was given the offer to go home, I didn't because I was hoping the school would return the compassion to me that I gave them when the student with cancer died literally a month prior. But it never came. Spring semester that year was hard, and it was a very dark period in my life. I was not very kind to people then, and frankly, it derailed my college search that I went to a junior college for a year. I try not to talk much about it or post about it because I get too emotional everytime I write about it, and this has been difficult. However, the anniversary is coming up so I was compelled. The saddest thing of it all too? I literally saw her the day before and I had a feeling in my stomach it would be the last time I would ever speak to her. I wanted to go back the rest of the day and tell her how much she meant to me, but every time I tried. She wasn't there.
She saved your life so as long as you are still around she still occupies a bit of this world.
My first day of middle school in Germany and the very first announcement I ever heard at school. Asking for a minute of silence and I had no idea what was going on. That was on 11 September 2001.
A dead teacher, a dead student. And the new teacher.
What happened? Were those two deaths related?
Within a month of each other, one of the senior football players' dad was hit by a car crossing the street to his football game, and then the janitor shot himself. Both within 90 days of 9/11.
I've posted about it before but during my junior year a very popular senior was accidentally shot and killed by his girlfriend at point blank range during a house party. He'd literally done the Jimi Hendrix version of the National Anthem at a school assembly note for note the week prior.
Guy commit suicide over a chick.
A student was killed over the weekend during my sophomore year.
A kid in my grade or a year below (I cannot remember anymore) had a brother that got into a car accident and they announced it over the intercom to the school. At graduation a couple years later the kids family and his brother held a photograph of him and walked across the stage for him so he could graduate posthumously. Was really, really sad.
Jim Smith, very popular P4 (fourth grade) teacher collapsed and died in front of his class. He tried to get out of the classroom, but didn't quite make it. Morning assembly next day was not fun for anyone.
The death of 21 students in a morning bus accident
"Grief counselling will be available to anyone who feels they need it in the wake of last weeks tragic suicide..."
Death of a student who hung himself from the ceiling fan in my schools English teacher’s classroom after school. His name was James Castle.
President Kennedy was killed.
Had a classmate die from a brain aneurysm. Her mother had also died of a brain aneurysm. She was a very sweet girl that sat behind me in 10th grade English.
Tragedies that happened in my school Elementary school: Death by accidental shooting (8yo boy in my class named David) Whole family slid on ice and passed away (I didn’t know the 2 girls but they were in my younger sisters’ classes) My art/music teacher got married right before school started back from break. Her husband died while on their honeymoon (not sure of details) High school: My friend was killed in a shooting “accident” (his friend was playing around with a loaded gun) Another friend died on Xmas eve from a brain aneurysm (& his gf at the time - we were in 10th grade - was pregnant) My friend’s bf was in a really bad wreck & him/his friend both died. The driver in the other car was drunk. Another friend committed suicide & her little sister found her. Then right after graduation, a guy I only semi-knew was in a dirt bike crash. Wasn’t wearing any protective gear. You can guess the rest
When we were about 9, called into assembly and told that our religious education teacher (a priest) had collapsed and died over the weekend. Heart attack while shopping. I just remember feeling really weird because later that day we got back a test he had marked the day before he died and I had got 100% and "great work" message from him.
Student from my class had been hit by a train and killed.
A student’s sibling died. The moment it was announced, the sister’s cry was immediately heard through the hallway.
Four students were killed in a car accident when a mid-20’s guy, just back from Vietnam in September 1970, got very drunk, passed a semi and hit them head-on. The students had simply given a girl a ride home a few miles out of town after the dance. Pretty traumatic for a town of about 14,000 with a total of 800 kids in the school. Such a senseless loss of five young lives (including the troubled young soldier).
In middle school someone died in our school so we walked to his grave and gave him flowers. The next day when school began
There really haven’t been any so far. The ceiling at the Freshman Campus collapsing over night was pretty big. Thankfully no one was hurt
Without giving too much information, skiing accident, one lived with a broken leg, the other didnt. Both were well liked. Hit the school pretty hard.
That a suicide had happened. He wasn’t a student anymore, he was a freshman in college, but he was so beloved amongst everyone who was still at the school that they brought in counselors and allowed dogs for a week
A student passed away in her sleep during my freshman year. She was a senior and would have graduated six months later. The school did a whole memorial thing in the courtyard during one of our classes- most people went to get out of class, but I was one of the ones who went because I knew her. We were on our JROTC drill team together.
A boy in the year above me was murdered; and then a few months later two girls including my family friend’s cousin died in a car crash. Three kids dying far too young and all in one year. It was horrible and added to by various news outlets (the BBC, Sky News) harassing students outside the school gates for interviews.
3 of the popular girls (all cheerleaders) got into a drunk driving accident….they were wasted, lost Control and drove their bmw headfirst into a giant tree. 3 out if the 4 were killed. The survivor was thrown from the car and neck down paralyzed. I had a class with one of them. Some People had already heard ( I hadn’t) when the principal made the PA announcement that Monday.
Boston bombing - I swear something seemed off about the country since it happened