2
5
6
15
17
New Bring Your Own Device policy for next year
Freshman History to be unleveled in the future
Not everyone should go on to college
Wegmans the Musicals gets ready to debut
The Special Olympics provides inclusive competition
news
news
opinion
The Student Newspaper of Algonquin Regional High School
the
a&e
79 Bartlett Street, Northborough, MA 01532
sports
arhsharbinger.com
HARBINGER JUNE 2018
.
VOL. 30 NO. 5
Submitted peter english
Last spring Massachusetts State Trooper Peter English responded to this accident on the 495 between Route 9 and the Mass Pike in Westborough. A drunk driver caused a crash involving six cars and several minor injuries. One car burst into flames after crashing; the fire later spread to a second car.
Tragedies on the roadway Dangerous driving permanently alters, ends lives Maggie Del Re & Elissa Gorman
Editors-in-Chief
live the next day,” Murphy said. “Taking unnecessary risks will cost you your life.”
Impact
Among the unkempt grass and trees According to Detective Sergeant along the side of Cedar Hill Street, two Brian Griffin, who is involved with acmodest wooden crosses poke out of the cidents such as the Murphy sisters’ on a ground. These two crosses represent two regular basis while on duty, these sorts of lives lost: Meghan and Shauna Murphy. events have a “huge impact” on both the The Murphy sisters both lost their lives community and himself. “Fortunately we don’t deal with fain a car crash on October 13, 2005. As as result, the Murphy Sisters foundation talities too often, but when we do, it impacts the community was created and is dedand first responders icated to safe-driving immensely,” Griffin education and aware“Everyone was said. ness, thus becoming a screaming and people Many students symbol of the potenhave been affected by were saying to call tial consequences of dangerous driving, eiunsafe driving. 911 and we all waited ther through first hand “Words cannot outside and everyone experience or that describe the overof someone close to was crying...we were whelming sense of them. loss from losing not all scared to take the While riding the one, but two children,” bus afterwards.” bus to her rugby game father Chris Murphy her sophomore year, said. “Every day is LUCY HUDDART senior Lucy Huddart filled with a sense of SENIOR described being hit loss.” head-on in a collision The Murphy sisthat took one life and ters’ tragedy is no isoresulted in several minor injuries includlated incident. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, ing concussions and neck injuries. Hudthere were an average of 17,250 car ac- dart herself suffered from bruised ribs, cidents per day in the United States in preventing her from playing rugby for weeks following the accident. 2015. “I was asleep, but I woke up on the “There is no entitlement for you to
floor like ‘what just happened?’” Huddart said. “But everyone was screaming and people were saying to call 911 and we all waited outside and everyone was crying. Our coach at the time, coach Laurie, is a nurse, so she was in the car with the other [driver], like putting her head through the driver’s seat window. They had to use the jaws of life to get her out and she actually ended up dying.” After the crash, Huddart explained that the entire team was “devastated emotionally” and that she would “cry about it all the time.” The trauma of the accident continued to affect the team. “We were all scared to take the bus afterwards,” Huddart said. “We didn’t have an away game for a while. The first one we had we were all wearing seatbelts and stuff, even though you never wear seatbelts on school buses.” Even minor accidents can leave a lasting impact on the people involved. Junior Natalie Bourque still remembers being in a car crash with her grandmother in fourth grade, and although no one died in that accident, the shock and trauma of that experience continues to shape her perspective on driving now. “I think the risk is much more real to the people who have experienced it, obviously, but it’s hard to see [dangerous driving] as such a common thing,” Bourque said. “It’s no big deal to them because they haven’t experienced it.”
Driving, page 10
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
17,250 Car crashes occurred per day in the United States in 2015