A father's plea: Cuba Road carnage should bring halt to horseplay

It was just so unnecessary.

The 15-year-old Palatine boy who got his hands on a car and drove it at high speeds with passengers who were as young as or younger than him.

Now he and a 14-year-old girl are dead and three siblings are recovering from both injuries and the anguish of a senseless stunt on a road known for teenage accidents.

Just so unnecessary.

So was the case of the 17-year-old South Elgin boy who purposely jumped from a moving vehicle. He was seriously injured as part of a "scavenger hunt" that involved dozens of students at St. Charles North High School. Points were offered to participants who completed certain idiotic acts, including bailing out of a car moving at 25 mph.

How unnecessary is that?

Then there were the three teenagers who drown in the Fox River. They were among some Chicago public school students on an overnight retreat who thought it would be fun to take out paddleboats at 1:30 in the morning.

What an unnecessary loss.

Just like the 19-year-old from Lincolnwood who was found dead in his fraternity house at IIT. He had inhaled the poisonous gas from a can of whipped cream.

These were all unnecessary and preventable and they all occurred in just the past month.

But you hear about these things all the time.

Last year it was a Bradley University soccer player who was killed in his dorm room when some teammates shoved fireworks under his door, starting the fatal fire.

Last spring in Peoria a 21-year-old Pontiac man was killed while goofing around with a friend on the sidewalk. The friend pushed him into traffic. The police called it "horseplay."

As regular readers know, the word "unnecessary" has been my favorite fatherism over the years. I have used it hundreds of times in an effort to head off brainless behavior by my own children.

No, you can't come home at 4 am-go to Wisconsin in our car-spend $300 for concert tickets-have spring break in Panama City Beach with other high school freshman. All would be deemed as "unnecessary."

My second most-often used dad word is "horseplay." My own children have heard it many times over the years and continue to hear it.

From the time they were tots, I would tell them "no horseplay." When they were young it was meant to cover things such as torturing their baby brother. In adolescence it was intended to prevent things such as drawing on the baby-sitter with a Sharpie. Now, through their teenage years, I usually offer the "no horseplay" admonishment as they walk out the door for some very important social event.

My hope is that they might remember those two words before jumping out of a moving car, racing over a hill on a rural road or taking out a paddleboat in the middle of a November night.

When they return home, I usually follow up with this question: "any horseplay?"

The fact that they have returned home unwounded and without having posted bond should be enough evidence that there was no serious horseplay, but I ask just the same.

Maybe Mike Karlin used to do the same thing before his 18-year-old son Brett would go out for the night.

On July 30, 2004, the Stevenson High School student was riding in a car driven by one of his friends. The car went airborne at about 100 mph and hit several trees.

That accident four and a half years ago was in Long Grove.

On Cuba Road.

The same spot where the 15-year-old crashed last week.

After burying his son Brett, Mike Karlin channeled his grief by starting a campaign to alert teenagers to the deadly consequences of unnecessary horseplay behind the wheel.

Through the "Brakes for Brett" foundation, Mike took the message of what happened that day on Cuba Road to thousands of students. He would tell them how unnecessary it was and how horseplay can kill you.

I wanted to talk to Mike about last week's accident on Cuba Road. But when I went to the Brakes for Brett Web site, I found that it no longer existed.

A note on the site stated that it went away at the end of October but didn't offer an explanation.

After a little more digging, I found that Mike Karlin himself had died last year at age 61. The obit described it as "complications from a heart attack."

No doubt Mr. Karlin's heart never recovered from breaking on that day a few years earlier when his son died in a horseplay "hill topping" accident.

So unnecessary.

And one more thing.

Considering that the message never reached those who died on Cuba Road last week, it is obvious Mike Karlin's work on earth was incomplete.

As parents, we need to pick up where he left off.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com.