‘He lit up a room’: Fraternity hazing puts 19-year-old student into coma, family’s lawsuit claims

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — A former pupil at San Diego State College stated an evening of hazing put him in a coma, and his life has by no means been the identical.

Benjamin Brennan’s household filed a lawsuit towards an off-campus fraternity and 9 of its members, saying their freshman teen practically died throughout a hazing incident.

“Pre-incident, Ben was everybody’s favourite man. He lit up a room,” stated his sister, Kaitlin Brennan. “Now, it appears like we’re attending to know a brand new Ben.”

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In line with the lawsuit from Ben’s household, two years in the past, when he was pledging Kappa Sigma fraternity, which the college stated it expelled final yr, frat members pressured him to devour medicine and arduous alcohol in quantities that will actually kill most individuals.

“There was a 750 ml bottle of Captain Morgan rum. He was instructed, he was commanded to drink all of it. And, they offered tobacco and marijuana, and he was speculated to devour that as effectively,” stated James P. Frantz, the household’s lawyer.

The lawsuit alleges {that a} fraternity member then drove Ben to a close-by hospital and dumped his lifeless physique whereas making an attempt to keep away from accountability.

“These boys simply deserted their brother and left him for lifeless. That is not brotherhood,” stated Ben’s mom, Lindsay Gibson.

The 19-year-old pupil was in a coma. Two years later, Ben remains to be recovering.

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“He cannot work, and we do not know if he’ll have the ability to. He cannot return to high school now. All these sorts of damages, and all of the emotional misery damages he’ll undergo,” stated Frantz.

Simply two years previous to Ben’s incident on the identical college, Dylan Hernandez fell out of the highest of a bunk mattress in his campus dorm room, hit his head and later died. He had been closely consuming at one other fraternity.

The Brennans stated Ben is going through an unsure future.

“Greek life is an enormous a part of faculty expertise. However, I need to warning households to have an extended, considerate, severe dialog earlier than your son joins that kind of neighborhood, since you may assume, ‘Oh, not my son. My son’s too sensible. And, that is precisely what I informed myself, and I am fortunate that he is alive,” Gibson stated.