BLOOMINGTON, IND. — Rick and Angi Fiege know that people want to judge. People want someone to blame. But while people are yammering about whether a group of college kids neglected a friend, Rick and Angi Fiege are buying a casket and a cemetery plot for their 19-year-old daughter — a girl who idolized her older brother, color-coded her college course schedule and once begged her dad for a puppy from the Humane Society.
While some want to talk about college party culture, the Zionsville, Ind., couple is thinking about their blond daughter whose childhood teddy bear sat on the bed in her dorm room.
Did it matter, the night that Indiana University freshman Rachael Fiege fell down a flight of stairs at a party and suffered a fatal head injury, whether friends freaked out about calling 911 because alcohol was possibly being served to minors? Did it matter whether they knew about a state law that would protect minors from alcohol-related citations if they sought medical help for her?
Did it matter why students waited six hours before calling an ambulance, when they noticed Rachael wasn't breathing? Some people on social media and elsewhere want to say it does. But to her parents, what killed Rachael was an accident and maybe a few bad decisions.
They don’t know whether Rachael had been drinking. Her mom acknowledges that she probably was. But they’re not so sure Indiana’s Lifeline Law would have helped. If anything, they say, the students simply did not recognize the seriousness of the situation.
“I think you should know,” Angi Fiege said, “that really, really, really good kids sometimes make choices that are not the right choices. I’m heartbroken that anybody would judge anybody at that house. They made a mistake. They were young. They didn't understand.
“Was there alcohol involved? Yeah, there was alcohol involved. Obviously that plays into it. But hopefully other people can learn vicariously through this. Know when to call for help. It just wasn't that these kids were doing anything malicious. They just didn't recognize it. ...
I won't comment on this, but I have mixed emotions about it. I cannot comprehend waiting six (06) hours. A three year old calls 911 when Mom is sick, we have heard many such cases, these were young adults who stood and stared for six hours, something is wrong here, any of them taking pre-med? I have always held IU in high esteem but I question this.
