I cannot imagine how it must be for the young man, now not-so-young, involved. One of my classmates died of leukemia before graduation. Another died in a car accident days later. She and some friends were driving to Disneyland. She was at the wheel and fell asleep. The others lived, but we graduated one Saturday and buried Toni the next.

I knew one young man who had an aneurism about three years after graduation. One died of a heart attack a few years back. One girl I know died in an accident. Nothing as horrific as you described though. A very sad story you have described here and I don't understand the open casket either. A photograph over the closed casket was called for in this instance.

That's absolutely terrible. I gasped aloud when I read it. I can't imagine why her parents had an open casket. Thank God, none of my classmates have died yet, but two are engaged to be married. I expect you'd see those on almost-equal planes. ;)

That's awful, what were her parents thinking? A closed casket should have been in order, you don't want to remember a loved one looking like that.

I had a close friend in high school get killed in a car accident. Her boyfriend was also driving and turned left in front of another car. She was in the backseat with another one of our friends. Neither of them in the backseat were buckled in, she died on impact, or at least that's what was said. Apparently she was decapitated, obviously they had a closed casket. That girls mother and the boyfriend were never right after that, just as I imagine that the boy driving this car has lived with guilt for the rest of his life.

I'm sure her parents were in shock, which could have led to their decision for an open casket. I had a cousin killed in a car wreck and though it was a closed casket, his parents insisted on being allowed to see him. I have issues with the funeral home. Why didn't they repair her nails and use enough make-up ? Sounds like they were doing a shoddy job.

Wow, how terrible.

Eleven years after graduation, I don't think we've lost anyone, but all of the classes around me have. Likewise, 7 years out of college, no one from my class has died, but people from nearby classes have. The ones that seemed the most tragic, of course, were the ones that happened soon after graduation or even while in school. One guy a year ahead of me in high school committed suicide in the high school parking lot while I was in college--his girlfriend, who was still in high school, had broken up with him. Stupid and sad.

I can remember a friend of mine at school, he and I were walking across a road toward the field where we all played cricket. Out of the corner of my eye (because I was busy chatting with him) I saw a blur (it was a woman on a bicycle really flying down the incline) and before I could do anything about it, it was too late. She slammed into my friend and they just ended up in a pile there. There were no aerial somersaults, just a crumpled mass of limbs, cuts and moans as they fell where it happened.

The woman was in a worse way than my friend because she saw it coming and couldn't do anything, she'd ripped a fingernail almost completely off and had various cuts, scrapes and wounds on her legs and arms. My friend was severely shaken and couldn't get back up as his legs kept giving way. The one good thing was that it had happened in the road next to the Royal Berkshire Hospital. People came running over and carted them both off.

Matthew (my friend) was off school for a couple of days and was badly bruised but okay and the woman was discharged later the day. It was a strange incident because it was nothing like I thought it would be and what that is I don't know. It was a sickening sounding collision punctuated by twisted metal, blood and lots of crying from both parties. I've never forgotten it.