Unfortunately this past Friday my daughter’s teacher told the class that it was a very sad day. This is because one of the past students of the school and cousin of my son’s football coach Andy Enriquez was killed in an auto accident this past Friday at around 2 am in the morning.
I can not imagine how his father Tim and mother Sue are feeling right now besides being destroyed.
The reason I am sending this blog is to remind all of the parents out there that Alcohol, Kids and Cars just don’t mix.
Please tell your loved ones so that we can at least minimize these tragedies.
Also, please keep Tim, Sue, Timmy and Amanda in your prayers. They will need the strength during this terrible time.
Below is the article that was in the Gainesville Sun http://gainesville.com/article/20070914/NEWS/70914007/0/video
A visibly somber Bernie Machen acknowledged Friday that yet another University of Florida student has died on his watch, a tragedy that reminds the UF president there’s work left to do in his campaign against underage drinking.
Andrew Enriquez, a 20-year-old UF junior, died in a car crash around 2:40 a.m. Friday. He was wearing an arm bracelet that may have been from a local bar and investigators are examining whether he was using an ID that wasn’t his.
Machen came to UF from the University of Utah in early 2004, and in his first two years as president he saw four students die in alcohol-related incidents. The death toll prompted Machen to form a community coalition designed to combat alcohol abuse among students, and the university has since instituted new alcohol education programs and stiffened penalties for students caught driving drunk.
Just last week, the coalition pointed to what members described as positive trend lines that might suggest the anti-drinking message is hitting home. Coalition leaders noted that recent student surveys indicate a change of attitudes and drinking habits, and there’s also been some decline in the number of students transported from campus to the hospital for alcohol-related issues.
There is little question, however, that binge drinking and underage drinking remains a problem in Gainesville. On Thursday night, before Enriquez’s death, Gainesville police charged 16 people with underage drinking at various downtown bars.
And while Machen says there may be some hopeful trends emerging, he notes that, “There’s only one measure that’s important, and that’s how many of our students die.”
UF made it through the 2006-2007 academic year without a student death related to alcohol, which is something Machen views as a sort of hollow victory on a campus where alcohol has taken the lives of so many. Any “progress” that may have happened, however, is moot in the face of this latest incident, Machen said.
“So what? So what if we have made progress; I just lost a student,” he said after a Friday meeting with UF trustees. “I haven’t made enough progress if I lost a student.”
“This is the worst part of my job,” he added, “to have to call this parent and tell them this. And I’ll go to the funeral if I can.”
Today, Machen will have another sobering reminder of the lives that he’s seen lost to drinking during his tenure. The family of a student who died in an alcohol-related incident in 2004 is expected to sit with him in the president’s box for the UF football game against the University of Tennessee.
“They don’t blame the university,” Machen said of the parents, “but it’s still a loss from which they’ll never recover.”
Enriquez’s parents, residents of Key Biscayne, have been grappling with the loss of their son since they learned of his death. His father, Tim Agustin Enriquez, said Enriquez had transferred to UF from Santa Fe Community College in the fall and “was very proud of being accepted at UF.”
Enriquez was a history major in UF’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, his father said.
“He was dreaming of being a lawyer,” said Sue Enriquez, the student’s mother. “He was always a pretty happy kid, I think. He liked sports. He loved to go to the gym every day.”
“He had lots of friends, like all kids at that age. He was full of life,” said Tim Enriquez. “We’re just trying to celebrate his life right now.”
Enriquez died when his sport utility vehicle struck a tree in the median on a southwest Gainesville roadway, according to Gainesville Police officers.
Enriquez had swerved to avoid colliding with another vehicle while traveling south in the 2100 block of SW 13th Street, said Lt. Louis Acevedo. Witnesses told officers Enriquez, who was driving a 2003 Chevy SUV TrailBlazer, had been weaving on the road and his SUV came toward their vehicle. He apparently lost control of the TrailBlazer as he swerved away, police said.
“The preliminary report indicates it was possibly alcohol-related and we’re following up on that,” said Gainesville Police spokesman Lt. Keith Kameg.
Other initial reports said Enriquez had been driving at a high rate of speed. One motorist drove into the Waffle House restaurant parking lot, near the scene of the crash, because the driver was afraid of getting struck by the SUV, police reported.
Police believe Enriquez was headed home to Bivens Cove, a complex in the 3300 block of SW 13th Street, at the time of the crash, Acevedo said.
Officers still were investigating the cause of the crash and the student’s whereabouts prior to the wreck, Acevedo said.
But police say there’s reason to believe Enriquez had been at a downtown bar earlier that night because he was wearing a wrist band and may have had an improper ID. Various area bars and clubs ask customers to wear the wristbands when they’re admitted to a business.
People from passing vehicles and the nearby restaurant watched as rescuers worked to free the student from the SUV, according to police. Enriquez died at the scene of the crash, Acevedo said.
Officers were awaiting autopsy results to determine cause of death and to confirm if alcohol was involved, police reported.
The crash occurred just north of a May wreck that killed Eastside High School basketball star Dante Anderson and a passenger in the same vehicle, Curtis Hampton Jr., a student at The Horizon Center. Two others in the vehicle were injured. Anderson had tried to pass another vehicle by driving into the median, but he lost control of the car and hit a palm tree, police had reported.
Services for Enriquez will be handled by the Caballero-Rivero Funeral Home in Miami, which can be reached at 305-227-3344.
A wake will be on Sunday from 8 p.m. to midnight, and the funeral Mass will be on Monday, both at St. Thomas the Apostle, 7377 SW 64th St. in South Miami.
Anyone wishing to make a contribution in memory of Andrew Enriquez can send their gifts The Andrew Enriquez Memorial Fund, The University of Florida Foundation, P. O. Box 144225, Gainesville, Fla. 32604-2425. Checks can be made payable to The UF Foundation. http://gainesville.com/article/20070914/NEWS/70914007/0/video