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LaSalle Student Was Driver In Wrong-Way Schuylkill Crash-11/12/06 | Article | |
| Wilson “Willie” Maldonado | Junior dies in car crash on I-76-11/15/06 | Article | |
| November 10, 2006 | Grieving couple rue son's 'mistake'-11/20/06 | Article | |
| LaSalle University |
Editorial: A lesson while
mourning
Willie Maldonado's death and the lessons we learn from it-9/12/07 |
Article | |
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Article Summaries and Excerpts Below |
Does this need to happen to Wilson and others |
LaSalle Student Was Driver In Wrong-Way Schuylkill Crash
POSTED: 11:49 am EST November 12, 2006 Top of page
UPDATED: 3:08 pm EST November 12, 2006
Reported that Wilson Maldonado, 21, a football player at LaSalle University, was driving west in the eastbound lanes of I-76, when his car slammed head-on into a vehicle driving the right way on the expressway. Maldonado was killed along with the other, 32-year-old Donte Barnes of Philadelphia.
Junior dies in car crash on I-76
Junior ISBT major Wilson , 20, died at about 2 a.m. Friday, Nov. 10 in an automobile accident.
Reported about the accident involving “Willie” Maldonado, reflections from his friends and family and his memorial service.
koehlera1@lasalle.edu
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Grieving couple rue son's
'mistake'
Reported that “Willie” Maldonado attended a football party at a popular hangout and left the party with too much alcohol in his system to operate a car according to his father. Although police have not disclosed a cause of the crash, the Maldonados feel it is their duty to speak publicly about the apparent role of alcohol in the accident, and their son's poor judgment. ""I know my son made a mistake," Wilson Maldonado Sr. says with a hurt, earnest look on his face. "I spoke to the friends he was with that night, and I asked them if Willie had been drinking. I wanted to know. They said that yes, they were all drinking, that they were drunk, and that Willie's speech was slurred."" "In time, the Maldonados would like to speak to young people about what happened to their son, and urge them not to make the same mistake. They also have a message for parents. "You think your child knows better, but you can never talk to them too much or warn them too many times," Wilson Maldonado Sr. says. "Go with your instincts," Maribel Maldonado says. "Don't stop warning them and making them understand, even if they tell you that you don't need to worry so much."" E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com |
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
Editorial: A lesson while mourning
Willie Maldonado's death and the lessons we learn
from it
Death is an omnipresent specter in all of life. A university like La Salle is not immune to its visit.
Recently, death’s visage—past and present—lingered around our campus. Over Labor Day weekend, junior information technology major Steven Amarillo was struck and killed by a taxicab in East Falls. As he was being laid to rest in his hometown of Poughkeepsie, NY, students planned a charity event named after another deceased La Salle student to be held Sept. 21.
“Run for Willie” seeks to raise money in order to send Wilson “Willie” Maldonado’s brother to a Catholic high school in New Jersey. Maldonado died Nov. 10, 2006, after driving the wrong way on eastbound I-76; he slammed his car into oncoming traffic, killing Donte Barnes, 34, a resident of the Cedarbrook section of Philadelphia.
Amarillo and Maldonado should not be forgotten. Both active in campus Greek life—brothers in Sigma Phi Epsilon and Phi Gamma Delta (also known as FIJI) respectively—their deaths caused great lament across campus. Many students traveled to the two fallen students’ hometowns to mourn their friends and brothers.
Tragic events such as these pull on the heartstrings of all and give a great appreciation towards life.
Almost a year after Maldonado’s death, students should be praised for not forgetting their late friend. The charity event for Christian Maldonado is a worthwhile cause. Organizers FIJI, Delta Phi Epsilon and the La Salle football team are appropriately honoring the memory of Maldonado and doing some good at the same time.
However, as tragic and sudden as the death of Maldonado was, one must not lose sight of the glaring blemish he left behind. A lesson needs to be learned from Willie’s death that the Collegian staff feels has not been emphasized. Last year, we did not take a stance on the incident. Time has passed and facts need to be disclosed.
Maldonado not only killed an innocent man, he did so while under the influence of alcohol.
On the evening of his death, Maldonado called his mother on his cell phone while at a local off-campus party. According to a Nov. 26 article in Hackensack, N.J.’s Bergen Record, Maribel Maldonado pleaded with her son to not drive that night. No matter how good a person he was or how kind-hearted his nature, Willie Maldonado drove under the influence and killed Barnes.
Although it may be difficult to stop a friend from driving under the influence, that little bit of courage is worth it in the long run.
“I spoke to the friends he was with that night, and I asked them if Willie had been drinking,” Wilson Maldonado, Sr. said to the Bergen Record. “They said that yes, they were all drinking, that they were drunk and that Willie’s speech was slurred.”
Students should take heed not only in what their parents tell them, but what simple common sense and science suggests—drinking and driving under any circumstance are not to be mixed.
Some facts on drinking may not be as widespread as others. When drinking on an empty stomach, the peak for blood alcohol content is only 60 to 90 minutes after ingestion, according to the organization Be Responsible About Drinking. Students should also be aware that a 160 pound man will have a BAC of about 0.04 percent 1 hour after drinking two 12 ounce beers or two other standard drinks on an empty stomach, according to College DrinkingPrevention.gov.
These facts about drinking may seem tiresome and oft-written, but it is true. Simple knowledge of alcohol’s effects is not driving the point home. Willie’s mother, Maribel, told the Bergen Record that she told him all the time to not drink and drive.
“He understood the danger. He would even talk about other people who he knew drove after they had drinks and he didn’t agree with what they did. He told me he knew better than that,” his mother said.
Knowing better does not save the nearly 18,000 people killed in 2006 due to drunk driving, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Willie should have known better than to have become part of that statistic.
Appropriate blame needs to be assigned to Willie, as Barnes will never be able to walk into his Cedarbrook home again. The situation is not only sad because Willie lost his life; it is horrendous because the situation was preventable. Willie and Barnes could easily be here today if someone had the courage to stop a drunken friend.
Collegian encourages students to participate in the “Run for Willie” because it links the past with the future. The potential Christian Maldonado possesses needs to be aided. Events such as this are positive and worthwhile.
But while we support and encourage the run from the Philadelphia Art Museum to McCarthy Stadium at La Salle, reflect on the little patch of road near Montgomery Drive that cost Maldonado his and Barnes’ lives.
The accident does not make Willie Maldonado a bad person. On the contrary, his mark on the University is still felt nearly a year after his passing. People still discuss his flag football prowess. However, his death was anything but Lasallian. When celebrating his life, one cannot forget the pain he inflicted on those he loved and on a man or a family he never even met.
La Salle University
Note: These letters are in response to the Sept. 12 editorial ("A lesson in mourning").
To the Editor:
In every incident resulting in a young man’s death, a process takes place of mourning, healing and eventually reasoning with what “could” have been done to prevent it. This process is true especially in the incident of the death of Wilson Maldonado last November. Willie made the bad choice of driving drunk, killing himself and one other. His friends, family and many others at La Salle were devastated by the incident. Over the past year, we have mourned, healed and eventually looked back at what could have been done to save Willie’s life.
Situations like these are the toughest. A responsible and much-loved person like Willie is no longer with us because of a single bad decision. What makes it more difficult, though, is the arrogance of those who were not attached to the situation and who use Willie’s name in an attempt to prove a point.
In the editorial “A Lesson While Mourning,” the editor makes a point that despite all that’s happened, Collegian staff feels it has kept its mouth shut for too long, and the facts need to be disclosed about Willie’s death. What facts would those be, exactly? What have we not learned? There has never been a clearer-cut case of right and wrong in any situation. This article simply takes a shot at all of us who have suffered through this.
The night of his death, throughout the proceeding week and especially at Willie’s funeral, everyone involved was constantly reminded of how Willie died. The fact that the Collegian finds it necessary to get that message across now is extremely inappropriate, especially with the Run for Willie taking place next week. If a stance on drunk driving was to be taken, there was ample time to do so before a benefit in his name was approaching.
If your goal was to illustrate the effects drinking and driving can have, you succeeded. Still, many of us are still wondering, “Why now?” Why, when so many of us are trying our best to celebrate Willie’s life only a year after his death, must you emphasize the one thing many of us will never get over? You obviously don’t understand that when something like this happens, those closest to Willie immediately assign blame.
People get angry. People want revenge. People want whatever it takes to bring their friend back. But what you don’t understand is how hard it is when the person you’re the most angry with is the person whose life was taken.
We as a community know whose fault this is, and we don’t need you to throw it in our faces at a time of mourning.
Frank DiPasquale
Class of 2008
To the Editor:
I am a La Salle University student. While not currently enrolled in classes, I am a member of La Salle’s MBA Program. I am also the mother of now 6-year-old Jamir Barnes, only child of Dante Barnes. Dante Barnes, age 34, was killed by Wilson “Willie” Maldonado Nov. 10, 2006 in a car crash. Dante was minding his own business when his life was tragically taken from him as a result of a “poor decision” made by Wilson Maldonado. Jamir Barnes lost his father, who he was very close and attached to, Lovida Barnes lost her oldest son and I became a single mother.
A single mother faced with the immeasurable challenges of now having to raise a child alone, faced with numerous sleepless nights as I hold my five-year-old child who cries out for his father. Faced with trying to come up with answers for a 5-year-old child who asks me why his daddy didn’t even say good-bye to him. Faced with having to enroll my innocent baby boy in counseling to help him grieve the loss of his father. Faced with financially supporting and planning for my child and his future alone.
The family of Willie Maldonado has also suffered a great loss, and please let it be clear that I do not intend to take anything away from their loss, or that Willie Maldonado’s family is not worthy of a fundraiser that would benefit them. But I wonder if Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI), Delta Phi Epsilon and the La Salle football team ever thought about the other victims of this tragic accident? Did they ever think about young Jamir Barnes, and how his education will be paid for, if he might also benefit from such a fundraiser?
I also wonder and formally ask the question as to why there has never been an article written by the Collegian staff that shares or sympathizes with the other victims (Dante and Jamir Barnes and their family) of this tragic event.
I will not give the details of the life of Dante Barnes, how much of a great father he was to his son, and the productive life he was living to provide for himself and his child. I challenge you or the staff writers of the Collegian to seek that information and share this info so that those who read the Collegian might also sympathize with the other victims of this very tragic event that effected and changed so many lives.
Tamia Robinson
La Salle MBA Program
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