Thursday, November 29, 2018

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Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com

Look inside for special offers from Kroger. Find the insert in the IDS print edition each Thursday.

Iconic IDS movie Brett Becker once had a less than quarry 10 percent chance of living. filled Now he's back at IU. By Caroline Anders

anders6@iu.edu | @clineands

ALEX DERYN | IDS

“At this point, I’m happy it happened to me. I lived like I was at the end of my life. Now I saw the end of my life, and I don’t want to go back there.” Brett Becker, IU recreational therapy major

By Lexi Haskell ldhaskel@iu.edu | @lexi_haskell

Brett Becker was moving too fast. The 19-year-old experienced skier came to a stop halfway down the ski hill, a sure sign of too much speed. After regaining his composure, Brett continued down the hill, picking up speed and soaring off a jump. His dad, Bryan, knew as soon as Brett took off that something was wrong. His son flailed in the air and overshot the landing by ten feet. Bryan ripped off his skis and started running up the hill. By the time Bryan got to his son, Brett was lying unconscious in the snow. His face was blue, and his heart stopped. Bryan started CPR. Ski Patrol showed up a few minutes later. *

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When Brett’s mother, Peggy, got the call Jan. 4, 2016, that her son’s ski trip with his dad, uncle and two cousins went awry, she was taking down Christmas decorations at their home in Libertyville, Illinois. She was told her son was alive in the hospital in Wausau, Wisconsin, but in a coma. Brett had hit his head during the fall, resulting in a brain injury. He wasn’t breathing, but one of the ski patrol volun-

teers, a respiratory therapist, had saved his life by putting a tube down Brett’s throat to help him. Hooked up to beeping monitors and fighting for his life, Brett hardly resembled the boy he was before. In high school, he wrestled and played lacrosse and football. His first semester at IU, finished just a month before the accident, Brett took 18 credit hours and earned a 4.0 GPA. When Peggy arrived at the hospital, Brett was still in a coma. The doctors told Peggy and Bryan that their son had a diffuse axonal injury. It’s similar to shaken baby syndrome and basically means his brain had been jostled around his skull. Brett’s sister Megan was preparing for recruitment for Alpha Chi Omega, her sorority at Butler University, when she heard Brett was hurt. She was on the road in 15 minutes. At home, Megan met up with her twin, Haley, and the two flew up to Wausau on a private plane. Megan only packed a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt for the trip and Haley packed jawbreakers and an adult coloring book. Brett’s girlfriend, Maddie Anderson, and two best friends, Mac Copeland and John Quigley, also drove up to Wausau. It would be more than three months un-

til Peggy and her family returned home. *

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After a week, Brett was transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Dr. David Ripley, who focuses on brain injury medicine and rehabilitation from the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab – formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago – visited Brett there. He chose Brett be part of the AMiCouS program, one of the only programs in the United States that works to actively treat patients in minimally conscious or vegetative states. On Feb. 4, 2016, exactly one month after the accident, Brett woke up from his coma and entered into a minimally conscious state. During this time, Peggy said Brett’s movements were involuntary. If someone spoke, he would look in their direction. But he couldn’t hold his own head up. Brett was still silent. They knew he had damaged the language part of his brain, and as time went on, they became more sure that he had aphasia, a language disorder that makes communication difficult. SEE BECKER, PAGE 6

In one scene in the iconic Little 500-based movie “Breaking Away,” four young men lay on a slab of limestone, sunning themselves. As working-class locals, they were called the “Cutters” for the years their families spent working in the stone industry. The first man leaps off the slab. He dives into the clear blue water below. The shot shifts as another group arrives, this one of IU students. One young man executes an impressive flip off a high cliff. The Sanders Quarry they’re swimming in, known locally as Rooftop, sits 3.5 miles south of Bloomington. Rooftop today is no longer the idyllic scene from the 1979 movie. It was recently filled in, following years of safety concerns. It’s unclear when exactly the quarry was filled or who was contracted to do the job, but one thing is certain — the days of Rooftop swan dives and sunbathing are over. Though it has become a symbol of Bloomington and a highly sought after hangout, Rooftop is privately owned. Monroe County Sheriff Brad Swain said that’s where much of the trouble starts. The same things that made the quarry so inviting — no lifeguards, swimming all day and the freedom to lug a cooler of beer along with you — make it dangerous. In fact, swimming in the Sanders Quarry is trespassing. Beyond that minor offense, Swain said the quarry also provided a huge opportunity for serious injuries. “We’ve always had people that would drown from jumping and colliding with a rock on the way down,” he said. Three people have died jumping from the quarry’s 65-foot ledges over the past 25 years, Swain said. For this reason and more, the sheriff said it would have been attractive to the land’s insurance carriers to have the iconic place filled in. Yaël Ksander, a spokesperson from the mayor’s office, agreed. “Of course Sanders Quarry is outside of Bloomington city limits but a big part of the lore of our area and beloved to us all!” she wrote in an email. “Clearly the liability was just too much for the owners to continue to shoulder.” Swain said it’s also difficult for law enforcement to get equipment to the quarries when someone’s in danger. The amount of people who park nearby and trespass through homeowners' yards is also high, he said. There's also the issue of the frequent incidents of petty theft from cars. SEE QUARRY, PAGE 6

Chimes of Christmas to ring in holiday season Dec. 1 By Robert Mack rsmack@iu.edu

The Grammy-nominated Singing Hoosiers will present “Chimes of Christmas” at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1 at the IU Auditorium. The annual holiday-themed attraction features 84 members of the Singing Hoosiers, a Jacobs-based group directed by Chris Albanese and made up of 84 students. The show will include Christmas classics, Christmas carols, the "Christmas on Broadway Medley" and Hanukkah-themed songs such as “Funky Dreidl.” As with years prior, the group will be joined by Hooshir, IU’s Jewish a capella group, the IU Horn Choir and the IU Children’s Choir. The Singing Hoosiers have been rehearsing the show every weekday since October when their Fall Concert wrapped. “It been a little hectic, and I think we started off a little stressed, maybe worried that we wouldn’t get it done in time since it’s less time than past

years,” said Ella Clary, a senior majoring in environmental and sustainability studies. “But we’ve actually come a long way with the amount of work we’ve had.” While evening rehearsals in the week leading up to the concert can be long, lasting for at least four hours, Anna Bruggenschmidt, the Singing Hoosier’s administrative manager, said she looks forward to the performance. “It’s really the most rewarding part,” said Bruggenschmidt, a junior majoring in elementary education. “It takes a lot of perseverance to learn songs — especially the more difficult ones — and practice them over and over and get notes wrong, get words wrong. But when we reach this point it feels good to see the big picture.” Clary joined Singing Hoosiers as a sophomore and said she’ll be sad to perform her last Christmas show with group. “It’s usually the sweet moments that make me tear up,” Clary said. SEE CHIMES, PAGE 6

IDS FILE PHOTO

Members of the Singing Hoosiers rehearse for their Chimes of Christmas performance Dec. 3, 2015, at the IU Auditorium. The Grammy-nominated Singing Hoosiers will present “Chimes of Christmas” at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1 at the IU Auditorium.

SATURDAY!

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Thursday, November 29, 2018 by Indiana Daily Student - idsnews - Issuu