Riding our small trick bikes and
playing volleyball at the beach all seemed like yesterday. These are my last
recollections of Christopher J. Fox. We had some great times together, but
would not have considered each other to be best friends if we hadn’t hung out together
on a normal basis. When someone you know has passed away, you still are
affected by them and are saddened by their passing. Christopher Fox was a very
popular student at Lindenhurst High School. He was a good-looking boy who
always had a smile on his face. He was a great person, and the girls adored him.
Like me he was short, and we were known for being of the shortest in our grade.
We always got along great and spent much of our high school days together
sharing some great laughs.
On
July 13th, 2009, approximately two weeks after our senior year
graduation, Christopher Fox passed away because of drinking and driving. He was
on his way home with a few friends after a great beach day. The day involved lots
of fun, but resulted in poor decisions of drinking. On his way home, his 1993 Volvo
swerved off the road and crashed into a sand dune, which caused his car to flip
over. Fox was not wearing a seat belt and therefore he was ejected from the
car. The other passengers all suffered minor injuries, but Fox took the most of
it. His wonderful life was stripped of him in the matter of seconds.
All
of Lindenhurst was shocked and deeply affected by this tragedy. Many
individuals and family members had lost a loved one because of that one split
decision to irresponsibly drive home intoxicated. One thing that was very
upsetting to discover; was that a friend had taken his keys from him because
she knew he was incapable of driving, but one of the passengers in the car had
gotten the keys back from the girl. They ended up leaving when she had been
trying to prevent something like this from happening. The irony about this
accident is that Lindenhurst High School, year after year, holds a drunk
driving seminar called “Shattered Dreams.” This program has some senior
students from the school participate in a fake drunk driving situation. It
starts off by all the students attending a mock party, acting as if they were
undergoing the affects of drinking. The house party has music blasting,
students drinking and playing all sorts of games, not expecting anything bad to
happen. As the party is winding down and a few students begin to leave the
party and drive home tragedy strikes resulting in a drunk driving incident.
Here is where the seminar is taken outside into our parking lot and is acted
out. All the juniors and seniors were watching this event take place before their
eyes. The great acting helped in this assembly to show the crashed cars, the
people injured, and the victims who end up “dying” from the crash. Everyone was
silently fixated just listening to the actors screaming for help and
hysterically crying. Loud ambulances sped into the parking lot to do their job
of aiding to the injured, while disposing of the dead person. The cops had come
to put the driver in handcuffs and take him away. After this scene, another video
was shown at the funeral home. Here Chris’ friends had an opportunity to recite
speeches they wrote about/to Christopher.
Sadly, Christopher Fox had seen this assembly two times, and yet
ironically enough the poor choice was still made by him to get behind the wheel
of his Volvo, which unfortunately resulted in his death.
A
beautiful memorial was made at the site of his crash on the road of the beach.
Still to this day, friends and family slow down to see it and remember
Christopher J Fox. This memorial is a reminder to all to drive slowly and to
not drive after the consumption of alcohol. His death has definitively
prevented plenty of his friends from making the same mistakes, but it took his
life to save others. If you ever said to yourself, “it will never happen to me,”
please think again. R.I.P.
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