“Another Wisconsin college student found in the river. So sad. I cannot imagine raising a child to college age and then losing him to some bizarre accident (probably fueled by alcohol.)”
I agree entirely. I strongly believe that alcohol has become too much of the ‘culture’ of college, and that the universities need to come down harder on irresponsible drinking. I’ve done my share, and understand ‘rites of passage’ and all that, but enough is enough. There is absolutely nothing cool or entertaining about being drunk.
Although there haven't been any recently, for a while there were numerous incidents of college kids drowning in the Mississippi in my old hometown of La Crosse, Wisc. Quite a few people suspected there was a serial killer on the loose targeting male college kids. The fact is these kids were found with no marks on their bodies suggesting there was no struggle with an assailant. The most likely conclusion: they got severely drunk, became disoriented, and wandered down to the river, which is only a block or two from many bars in La Crosse, and fell in. Once in the river, the swift current and the cold water most of the year would make it extremely difficult for a sober person to extricate themselves much less someone extremely inebriated.
In fact, several young males have been fished out of the river after falling in claiming to have no idea how they fell in. Others have been caught staggering towards the river and forcibly made to go in the other direction towards the UW-La Crosse campus. In virtually every incident of a student being stopped and made to turn around, the student insisted he was going in the right direction.