A Night Of Donuts, Death, And Duty

A midnight pager goes off, and what sounds like a standard “rollover, party pinned” call turns into every parent’s nightmare. On the way to the scene, I answer my phone and hear my son JJ screaming for help, and suddenly I am not just a medic responding to an emergency. I am a mom racing into the dark, trying to hold it together while my family’s world collapses in real time. We tell the full story of May 26, 2016: the graduation bonfire, the decision to go back for a forgotten phone, ...