Teen’s Death Is One More in Long, Sad Line

NEWPORT BEACH —  If you listen carefully, beyond the proud hope of “Pomp and Circumstance” this graduation season, you can also hear the sad echoes of an entirely different kind of song.

It is a funeral dirge, which has become as much a part of the rites of spring as the youthful exuberance traditionally tied to graduation itself.

An accident early Friday, in which one of 10 teens jammed into a Chevy Blazer died after the driver lost control on Irvine Avenue in Newport Beach, served as a wrenching reminder of the tragedies that have become a part of this season of teenage parties.

Friday’s accident came exactly one year after three young people were killed in a car and truck collision in Irvine that also ended a night of partying.

Two years ago, in similar circumstances, four Orange County teens--high school buddies--died on a desolate stretch of desert roadway after a night of partying a few weeks after the end of the school year.

“As we all know, as adults, these things can happen,” said Gary Norton, principal of Newport Harbor High School, where the teens involved in Friday’s crash attended. Still, “It’s incomprehensible to us. We cannot understand these things as a society.”

Norton said he has received too many phone calls about student deaths during his years as an administrator. In light of Friday’s tragedy, he encouraged parents to find fresh ways to remind their children about safety issues “every time they walk out the door.”

Yet despite persistent efforts, including outreach programs by various schools and police agencies around Orange County, the tragedies continue.

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Cars aren’t always involved. Six years ago, a star basketball player for Crescenta Valley High School was shot and killed as she slept after a prom night party in an Anaheim Hotel. A 19-year-old acquaintance, who had been waving a gun around during the night, was convicted of second-degree murder. The common thread in these tragedies has less to do with drinking than it does with youthful energy, misplaced senses of immortality and incomprehension of the depths of pain that a single mistake can cause.

Last month, an 18-year-old Yorba Linda man, Steven Searcy, fell to his death while standing in the back of a moving sport utility vehicle as he rode with four friends.

In August 1995 two teens were killed and two injured in Garden Grove when their speeding car hit another, then smashed into a tree. The driver, 16, was speeding to drop off one of his friends who was late for driving class.

“I just don’t know what we can do to impress upon young people that fun is something that needs to be experienced within the context of safety,” said Reidel Post, executive director of MADD Orange County. “Quite often, I think, in their minds the two do not go hand in hand at all. [They think] part of having a good time is being carefree and sometimes careless.”