Gazette, The (Colorado Springs): Coroner pleads for restraint

FLORENCE - Coroner Dorothy Twellman stood outside the high school gymnasium and kept thinking of things she'd forgotten to say.

She meant to tell the kids their classmate Nick Trout drank so much alcohol that it ate at the lining of his stomach.

She meant to stress the importance of not mixing alcohol with drugs.

She meant to chide them for using the excuse that "there's nothing else to do."

There was just too much to say.

As the Fremont County coroner stood in the middle of the gym floor and addressed nearly 600 teenagers -- some squirming, some giggling, many attentive -- it boiled down to this:

"I do not want to see you on an autopsy table," said, "and you don't want to be there."

Two weeks ago, Twellman met one of their classmates, 18-year-old Nicholas Lansford Trout, in exactly that place.

His death Dec. 4 was the fourth from alcohol poisoning in Colorado since September. Alcohol also contributed to the deaths of three other high school and college students during that time.

The cluster of deaths has drawn attention to the dangers of binge drinking.

In Fort Collins, friends of Samantha Spady, a Colorado State University student who died in September after a night of drinking, handed out thousands of cards this week listing signs of alcohol poisoning.

In Denver, a state lawmaker is preparing a bill that would stiffen penalties for giving alcohol to a minor and give immunity to people who call 911 to get help for a victim.

In the small southern town of Florence, Principal Jim Lucas decided he, too, had to do something.

"I wish all kids wouldn't drink, but I'm also a realist," he said. "Let's arm them with some tools."

So Lucas invited the one person he figured might get through to his students -- the coroner.

On Thursday, Twellman waited as Lucas explained to the students the reason for the unusual assembly. "I don't ever want to go through that again," Lucas said. "Ever."

Twellman wondered whether anything she, a 57-year-old, said could mean something to teenagers.

She started by telling them she meets people in two places -- at St. Thomas More Hospital in Caon City, where she works as an emergency room doctor -- and the morgue.

But it's too late in the morgue.

"You're gone," Twellman said. "Your life is over. Your dreams are gone. Nick's opportunities are gone. I understand he was a bright boy. Not now."

One boy twirled his baseball cap. A girl in a pink sweater giggled and whispered to the boy next to her. Others rested their chins on their hands and listened quietly.

"When I was your age, I had no clue, and you don't either," she said. "You're in the age of cocksure ignorance."

Twellman told the students she knew about their drinking games such as drinking as much beer as they can and waiting for someone to pass out so they can draw on the person with ink markers.

"Everyone gets a good laugh," she said. "But it's not funny when you're drawing pictures on a friend who is dying."

That's what happened to Trout. The other teenagers used markers to scrawl on his face when he was unconscious.

She wasn't trying to make those who didn't help Trout feel bad, she added. "You didn't realize how bad off he was."

People have different body weight and levels of tolerance to alcohol, so it's hard to say how much is too much, Twellman said. It's also critical to know one's own limits.

Like Lucas, she said she wasn't trying to tell them not to drink, but at least to do so wisely.

Twellman then had a gurney wheeled out. She asked a student to get in the body bag, then zipped it up most of the way.

"Put yourself in this body bag," she challenged the students.

Richard Gasser, a friend of Trout, said he did exactly that. "I thought of myself in there," the 18-year-old said.

Drinking is far from uncommon, students said.

"About everyone at school has been passed out from alcohol," Jessica Schenk, 15, said.

Throughout Florence, Trout's death has been on many people's minds.

At the Blackjack Cafe, Jonathan Arneson said he worries about kids trying to be macho and drinking too much.

"You better be taking this seriously," Arneson warned his 15-year- old son Nate.

Twellman hopes so, too.

"I hope it will stick with them," she said.

It has to, Lucas, the principal, added.

"They're listening," he said, almost grimly.

WHEN TO CALL 911

If a drinker starts vomiting, becomes stuporous or confused, loses awareness of where they are, becomes sleepy or passes out.

BRINGING CHARGES

The 11th Judicial District Attorney's Office announced Thursday more than a dozen people will be charged in connection with Nick Trout's death.

Shane Theissen, a 30-year-old Florence man accused of buying alcohol for the kids, was charged Thursday with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and unlawful acts, both felonies.

Florence police said Theissen is a cousin of one of the teenagers who allegedly collected money from the other kids, then had Theissen buy the alcohol at a local liquor store.

Similar charges are expected against another adult believed to have bought alcohol for the teenagers in November.

The teenager who allegedly asked the adults to buy alcohol will be charged with criminal solicitation, a felony. His name was not released.

An additional 10 teenagers will be cited for possession or consumption of alcohol by a minor.