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[zeropointfour]

Why do 17-year-old kids die?

Comments

[pumpkin_twilite]

You might not know who I am, but I searched the interests for Adventure Treks and I was wondering if you're talking about Charlie Michael Wellman. I went on the PAC 16 trip with him. Awesome kid.
~ Virginia

[zeropointfour]

Yeah, you hit it. It absolutely floored me when my parents asked me if I had ever gone a trip with the Wellmans and told me that something horrible had happened. I went to AT for four years, and I went on three trips with his sister Pam, but I didn't meet Charlie until the 2003 reunion (their mom drove me up to Mondamin). I barely knew Charlie, but that doesn't make it any easier to understand or accept. The cruel symmetry in all this is that the same day I met him, one of my oldest friends collapsed on the front lawn of the school while playing Ultimate and died of heart failure--and he was 17 as well. It's profoundly disturbing.

[pumpkin_twilite]

Whoa! That's crazy.