Most high school students aren’t old enough to drink alcohol. Many college students are. Bar owners and servers help provide it.
But when Cindy McCue and Shawn Newstead came to East Lansing on Wednesday, they had a message for all three groups - think before, during and after drinking.
McCue’s son, parks and recreation junior Bradley McCue, died from alcohol poisoning after downing 24 shots on his 21st birthday in 1998.
Newstead’s son, 24-year-old Brandon D’Annunzio, died Oct. 11, 2000 after being beaten outside an East Lansing bar Oct. 1.
The women addressed more than 200 high school students, hoping to prevent underage drinking. Next, they met with more than 80 bar and restaurant servers and owners, hoping they could share ideas about preventing violence and binge drinking.
Later, more than 400 MSU students watched the mothers explain, in the Fairchild Theatre, who their sons were and how their lives could have been saved.
“Bradley’s friends thought they knew how to take care of him,” Cindy McCue said. “They did the right thing, but they didn’t do enough. He was fine when they put him to bed - but he wasn’t fine two hours later.”
Along with MSU police, Olin Health Center and the American Campus and Alcohol Team, McCue explained when students are afraid a friend may have alcohol poisoning, they should not be afraid of a ticket from police.
They should wake up a person who has fallen asleep every few minutes, prop them on their side, and call for help when warning signs such as vomiting, slow breathing and fewer heartbeats appear.
“What happened to Bradley is not an exception,” Cindy McCue said. “He wasn’t on the fringes of life. He was in the middle of life.
“Not everybody dies from alcohol. Bradley did.”
Cindy McCue and her husband, John, formed BRAD - Be Responsible About Drinking - to help educate people after their son’s death, speaking to students in Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Alaska. Students from 34 universities receive cards on their 21st birthdays, reminding them to drink safely.
But Wednesday was Newstead’s first time making a public presentation about her son, his life and his death.
“I see him in every 24-year-old male face,” Newstead told MSU students. “When I see all the baseball caps on your heads, I see Brandon. He doesn’t look any different than you do.”
And after the presentation, some students took a good look at themselves before they went out.
Some of them decided to give their own mothers a phone call.
“I think it was really admirable for the moms to come out,” elementary education sophomore Brian Watkins said. “These are people that came to our school. They do all the same things we do.”
Mark Hayes, a finance and Spanish sophomore, said because the presentation was made to a large number of fraternity and sorority members, the message could be carried on.
“We have a reputation for leaning to the party side,” he said. “The greeks take a very proactive approach and could take it out to the community.”
MSU residence hall governments donated $596 to the McCue’s BRAD foundation, in an attempt to extend the message far beyond East Lansing.
“I wasn’t expecting this at all,” Cindy McCue said. “You need to take care of each other. (Consequences of drinking) are the big decisions in your life. Don’t let alcohol make the decisions for you.”
John Bradley, whose bachelor party D’Annunzio was attending when he was beaten, said he hoped the presentation would help young people make wiser choices about alcohol than his friend did.
The investigation into D’Annunzio’s beating is continuing.
“It was just a course of minutes,” Bradley said. “It’s kind of a dismal story, but it’s critical. It could have been me. It could be you.”
Jamie Gumbrecht can be reached at gumbrec1@msu.edu.
