THE AURORA NEWS-BEACON

October 17, 2007

How could teens have been saved?

With the February fatal DUI crash as a backdrop, youth performers urge Oswego teens to make good life choices

By CHRISTINE S. MOYER STAFF WRITER

OSWEGO -- Tires screeched over the speakers in St. Anne's Catholic Church.

There was the crunching, snapping sound of metal twisting, contorting and collapsing in on itself. And then the sirens wailed.

The parents of Katherine Merkel, 14 and Jessica Nutoni, 15 -- who were among the five victims of the Feb. 11 car crash in Oswego -- dropped their heads heavy with tears.

Janine Rohrer, an Oswego Police Department cadet who directed traffic around the crash, rushed her hands to her reddened face and fell against a wall in the back of the room.

"Four Oswego friends were lost Feb. 11, 2007," recited Christian Rodriguez, a junior at Plainfield South High School and a member of the MWAH! Performing Arts Troupe.

He said, "A fifth friend died a week later. And three more were seriously injured."

Rodriguez asked, "How could these five lives have been saved?"

The room packed with about 100 local teens and adults was still.

On Sunday, St. Anne's kicked-off its annual youth program with a performance by the issues-oriented MWAH! -- Messages Which are Hopeful -- Performing Arts Troupe.

During the roughly 90-minute act, the area youths addressed issues ranging from abusive relationships and anorexia to teen suicide and the February crash.

The teens relied on music, dance and theatrical performances to shed light on what is "hopeful and good" in true life situations.

Michael Todd Emery, an Oswego East junior and MWAH! performer, noted that the goal is to make teens aware that there are always choices they have to make.

Emery said, "Sometimes you make the wrong choices and sometimes you make the right choices ... I want them to walk away knowing how to make the right choices."

Standing before an oversized photograph of the mangled car involved in the February crash, Rodriguez ticked off some of the teen's choices -- that if made differently -- could have prevented the accident.

He speculated that if the Oswego classmates chose not to go to a party that night -- where people are alleged to have been drinking -- if they chose not to jam themselves into a car and if they chose not to follow the crowd, the five teens could still be alive.

"Most of us teens, we live for the moment," noted 16-year-old Rodriguez. "But four teens from Oswego, they died in one moment."

The MWAH! performers also enacted the story of 18-year-old George Terrazas of Naperville, who killed himself in 1999.

Audience members wiped their eyes with the edges of their sleeves as Rodriguez read Terrazas' final words in a letter he wrote before taking his life.

In the letter, Terrazas lamented no longer being eligible for track at Waubonsie Valley High School, breaking up with his girlfriend and feeling alone.

"I'm pretty sure I'll use a pistol," he wrote. "I just want the pain to go away."

Terrazas' mother, Leticia Stark, urged the teens in attendance to realize that suicide is a permanent solution for a "temporary problem" and she pleaded that they "just tell someone (and) just get help" if they feel depressed.

Throughout much of the evening, Katherine Merkel's mother sat in the third row with her arm linked in her husband's.

Seated nearby was Jessica Nutoni's father Mike and her sister Faith.

The families clutched tissues. Faith wore a white T-shirt with the message, "I miss my big sis" and "Don't drink and drive you lose, you really do," printed in black marker.

Following the event, Mike Nutoni said he was "really touched" by the teens' performance, which he "never expected would be like this."

"It was a bad decision to pile in that car," Nutoni sighed. "But there's nothing you could take back now. It's all over."

He said, "I've got to live with it the rest of my life. I'm going to miss her for the rest of my life."