ANOTHER LAX College Kid ends up in RIver

Quote:

---

I would hope if they were .8 the bartender would cut them off, if they were still alive at that point.

---

I personally have worked at a College Bar when I went to school (Red Carpet at St. Cloud). On a Saturday night in a busy town, they have all they can do to serve people, and cannot take the time to check if anyone if over .08. I agree it is the bartenders responsibility, but to ask them to check 300 people a night, is unrealistic. And most people will order 10 drinks at a time, especially as the night rolls on, so how do you check every one of their friends?

I hope it all comes down to young people, drinking to excess, and doing dumb things, and not a “serial killer”, but I am leaning on just plain stupidity.

Don’t mean to start any arguments, just my .02.

If I was in the river the first thing I’d do is kick my shoes off and lose whatever layers I could. To me the fact that he didn’t have shoes or a coat on is meaningless.

I’m still suspicious that the kid did something he doesn’t want to admit to. Maybe he drove drunk or something like that. Hopefully something conclusive will come out of the investigation. If someone tried to hurt the kid, I sure hope they catch that person and punish him or her. If the kid made up a story I hope they catch him and punish him.

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I would hope if they were .8 the bartender would cut them off, if they were still alive at that point.

---

I personally have worked at a College Bar when I went to school (Red Carpet at St. Cloud). On a Saturday night in a busy town, they have all they can do to serve people, and cannot take the time to check if anyone if over .08. I agree it is the bartenders responsibility, but to ask them to check 300 people a night, is unrealistic. And most people will order 10 drinks at a time, especially as the night rolls on, so how do you check every one of their friends?

I hope it all comes down to young people, drinking to excess, and doing dumb things, and not a “serial killer”, but I am leaning on just plain stupidity.

Don’t mean to start any arguments, just my .02.

---

Dude:

I was making a joke that John accidentily wrote .8 instead of .08. Thus the

Not even a guy from SD can get to .8, although I tried on more than one occasion in college.

On a serious note, whatever is killing these kids is sad. I hope they find the real problem. I don’t think you can blame alcohol, but I’m sure it’s a factor no matter what is happening.

I went to school in Eau Claire and also grew up in the area. Eau Claire is just like LAX. They are right next to the river and have tons of drunk kids. We have had a couple of kids go for swims in late fall to early spring here too and one or two have died. What I don’t understand why has LAX had 3x’s the number Eau Claire has? Are the kids in Eau Claire smarter? Actually I would think with the way things are set up you would have a lot more EC kids “taking a swim” before the ones in LAX, the dorms and school are across the river from the bars? Something is funny down in LAX. You don’t have that many kids wander that far to the river for no reason and go for a swim or fall in when it is 20 degrees outside and the water isn’t much warmer.

The people from up my way what do you think?

My “Wednesday AA meeting”, actually a fishing trip to the Mississippi, fell through due to outboard issues, so here are a few more thoughts…

At least once when I went for a liquored-up swim in the Mississippi, I took my wallet out and my shoes off before going in. Other times, I had to dry my shoes and money out the next day. More than once, I had to walk across the interstate bridge while three sheets to the wind when I got stranded in Wisconsin at closing time, and this did not always happen during warm-weather months. I can also think of a few times I found myself hanging out either at Levee Park or Lake Winona late at night while under the influence. Had I drowned during one of these escapades, it might have seemed “mysterious”, but the only real mystery would have been what I was thinking while intoxicated on alcohol or other substances. (Said “other substance” being smoked while on the beach or at the levee. )

It may seem like Lacrosse has had an unusually high number of drownings in the last decade. However, during the seven years I lived in Winona, there were at least seven drownings that I can think of off-hand. In the early spring of 1996 or 1997, five St. Mary’s students died when their SUV missed the turn on Riverside Drive and went in the river (accidental/alcohol-related). In the summer of 1998, the girl I knew drowned late one night while swimming on Latsch Island (accidental/alcohol-related). In the summer of 2000, a depressed European immigrant drowned himself in Lake Winona. I know there were other drownings, but those are the ones I can think of off-hand. That equals at least seven drownings (six alcohol-related and the seventh a suicide) to happen in Winona over a four-year span. No one in Winona, though, concluded something sinister was going on. I suspect Eau Claire and other river towns have more drownings in the last ten years than most people realize. Iowa City, where I live now, had two last summer.

My point is that the number of drownings in LAX over the last decade may not be as high as it seems when compared to other, similar communities. I am not saying that the deaths in Lacrosse should not be investigated, but until there is some hard, substantiated evidence pointing to foul play, I believe they are unrelated accidents, with alcohol a common and decisive factor. All the circumstantial evidence, IMO, clearly points to accidental drownings, rather than to some guy in a trench coat waiting outside the bars for drunk guys to come out alone so he could drown them. That was one baseless rumor I heard around Lacrosse years ago.

MossBoss,

It is all becoming much more clear now.

Call me a dumb

I did a little searching here and I can only find that 3 UWEC students have drown in the past 10 years. One was a known suicide. So I would have to say that there is something fishy?

Clusters of unlikely events do happen in small areas, defying the odds. Sports Illustrated just did an article on a rash of suicides taking place among current and former high school football players in a small Maine town. The suicide rate there is far higher than the norm, but no one is suggesting that someone is making those kids commit suicide. Likewise, the odds of any one person being struck by lightning are very small, but there are people who are struck repeatedly by lightning, as the Guiness Book of World Records loved to show. If the drowning rate is higher in Lacrosse than in typical towns, it does not automatically follow that something unusual is causing them. For instance, the five simultaneous drowning deaths in Winona were very unusual statistically (what are the odds of five people drowning at once in a small town not experiencing a flood?), but it was the result of an unfortunate random chain of events aided by bad judgement.

My biggest reason for skepticism is the complete lack of evidence pointing to foul play in the drownings. No evidence of physical struggle such as cuts, bruises, or scratches has been found on any of the drowning victims, nor has there been any evidence found that they were bound or restrained in some way. No physical evidence or eyewitness testimony has been found indicating that any other person or persons was involved in any of the drowning deaths. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence suggesting alcohol was involved. Unless some hard physical evidence of foul play comes up, I see no reason to think these are anything but accidents.

What if they were lured by the thought of getting a piece of by a female or some sick tranny??

It’s a theory I’ve heard thrown around

I don’t know much about this subject as I am not a local. If that was the cause as you say could be a remote possibilty, there would or may be physical evidence. Anything like that ever turn up?

No foul play suspected, but no real answers either.

http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2006/01/14/news/00lead.txt

Looks like they also printed the letter:

http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2006/01/14/news/01email.txt

Just to throw another loop in all this. This young man has been exploited because of an email. There are several other incidents that have happened over the years where the individuals have made it out of the water alive. These have just not made the news. Maybe they should though. Call it unusual if you want. I personally believe that Slop is right about the location of were he entered the water. I also believe that you will find his truck in the same area. The answers to all of this we will probably never know, and as long as we have bars and festive spirit, it will continue here and anywhere there is water added to the mix. Lets all be gratefull this young man lived and hope that we may never experience this in our own lives.