Choose well, be cool and live

In less time than it takes to read this sentence, six teens decided to act. Now four of them are dead, leaving all their friends, family and neighbors with never-ending, searing pain. They live on with unimaginable anguish.

No amount of candles, notes or teddy bears will bring back Taylor Stinchcomb, 15, of Gurnee; or Jessica Ferrer, 15 of Arlington Heights; or Freddy Najera, 16, of Mount Prospect; or Elibeth Solis, 16, of Arlington Heights. Three of them — Ferrer, Najera and Solis — decided to drink and then go joy riding, speeding without wearing seat belts. In a different tragedy, one of them — Stinchcomb — was full of hurt at the thought of her dog dying, decided to take the family minivan without permission and died after her friend crashed that minivan.

All of them got into cars when they shouldn’t have. All of them were out driving well after the curfew imposed on teen drivers that is designed to try to prevent horrific crashes like theirs. All of them failed to wear seat belts. All of them are dead. There is nothing good or cool about that.

If you’re a teen or preteen, please understand that. If you’re an adult who knows or loves any child, please don’t worry about being too strict. Help the children in your lives to understand good choices are cool. Repeatedly.

Let these tragedies teach you to try to prevent it from ever happening to you or anyone you love.

Stinchcomb, upset her dog was dying, made a bad choice. So upset she couldn’t drive, she might have thought she was doing the right thing letting her 15-year-old friend drive. You often don’t make good decisions when you’re distraught. After they switched seats, Stinchcomb failed to buckle up. Now her family and friends are the distraught ones. Forever.

Daniel Ascencio, 17, of Mount Prospect, is lucky to be alive. He should be in a wheelchair, his mom told him. Or much worse. Two pretty, young teenage girls — Ferrer and Solis — pulled up in a car at 2:30 a.m. Saturday and told Ascencio and Najera to hop in. The car was stolen. Ascencio thought the girls already were drunk. He and Najera made the rash move to get into the car anyway. Ascencio made the right decision to buckle his seat belt after making the wrong decision to get into the car.

He made the right decision to tell Solis to slow down, but she didn’t listen. “If we die, we die,” he said his buddy Najera told him. Minutes later, Najera, Ferrer and Solis did die. The car they were in crashed through a mailbox on a lawn and into trees. It was one of the goriest scenes veteran emergency workers could recall. There were car and body parts everywhere. People in that neighborhood probably will wake to the echo of screams for many nights to come.

Remember that. Don’t do that to your moms and dads. To your friends. To your limitless future. Stand up to your peers. Don’t drive after curfew. Don’t drink. Wear your seat belt. Don’t hop in. Don’t drive with people who are intoxicated or speeding. Live. That‘s the cool thing. That’s absolutely epic.