SigEp Katrina 2006 - YouTube

This excellent video was just uploaded. Too inspiring not to share.

SigEp Katrina 2006 - YouTube: ""

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Friends, family help Stony Point student hit by drunken driver

If this story doesn't fit the defintion of a brother in need, I don't know what does. We had a post when he was first hit, but now we can see some of the longer term effects of his injuries.

How to help

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Donations may be sent to:
Friends of Paul Conticelli
P.O. Box 2013
New City, NY 10956

STONY POINT - Paul Conticelli's injuries have largely healed, but he is still living with the effects of being struck by a car four months ago.

Conticelli, who turned 20 last month, has double vision and blurry vision in his right eye, so he's not allowed to drive alone. He can't stand for more than 30 minutes before his feet start to hurt. He sees a doctor every Tuesday to get persisting bedsores checked.

"I guess the hardest part is really realizing I'm not 100 percent yet," Conticelli said recently.

On March 25, Conticelli was hit by a drunken driver while on spring break in Cancun, Mexico. The Stony Point man suffered serious injuries, including a cracked skull and a fractured left leg, and was put in a medically induced coma.
[...]
Conticelli's medical bills add up to well over $150,000, says his mother, Paula. The expenses the family incurred in Mexico total more than $50,000, much of which is out-of-pocket.

Since learning of Conticelli's plight in The Journal News in May, Rockland residents and businesses have donated about $13,000 to the family. People have sent checks from $5 to $1,600.

Businesses have put collection jars on counters, and friends have sold $5 wristbands honoring Conticelli, Paula Conticelli said.

More help is on the way, with four fundraisers planned for this month. They include a cruise night and raffle by a Rockland antique car club, a golf outing, proceeds from a Stony Point playhouse and a percentage of sales from a Garnerville hair salon.

"I'm overwhelmed by the love and the support," Paula Conticelli said. "People have been so kind and so giving of their time."
[...]
Paula Conticelli is still sorting out her son's medical coverage. Not only was Paul Conticelli under his stepfather's and his biological father's health-insurance plans, he also bought traveler's insurance.

"I probably have four stacks of bills that are about 4 inches high on my dining room table," Paula Conticelli said recently.

Paul Conticelli plans to return to the University of Delaware and his Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity in the fall. He's looking forward to attending the fundraisers.

"I don't know if I can stay too long," he said. "Sometimes I get really tired from standing too long. But I want to show my appreciation."

Have you seen "Sicko" yet? (The link is to a review in my other blog.) Once you do, the very idea of having to pay for medical bills with fundraisers, raffles, wristbands, and collection jars on counters of businesses will make you angry. It should make you angry anyway.

The address for contributions to help with the expenses is in the box above.

Friends, family help Stony Point student hit by drunken driver

UDelaware Sig Ep Learns Lessons in Brotherhood

How to help

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Donations may be sent to:
Friends of Paul Conticelli
P.O. Box 2013
New City, NY 10956

Update:A link to the story

Friends rally 'round Stony Point crash victim
By KHURRAM SAEED
THE JOURNAL NEWS

Keeping a promise to his mother might have saved Paul Conticelli's life early one Sunday morning in March.

Paula Conticelli made her 19-year-old son and his University of Delaware fraternity brothers promise that they would always use the buddy system while on spring break in Cancun, Mexico.

Around 4 a.m. March 25, Paul, who is from Stony Point, was crossing the street to return to his hotel room with his Sigma Phi Epsilon brother Mark Ptomey. The pair had spent the night at a club.

As he began to cross, a local man - traveling in a car at 80 mph, without his headlights on and who was later charged with driving while intoxicated - struck Conticelli, cracking his skull, fracturing his left leg and eventually leaving him in a medically induced coma. He had been in Cancun less than 24 hours.

Now, nearly two months later, Conticelli's injuries have largely healed, remarkably, without any surgery. His voice is no longer a whisper. He can walk again. Last month, he struggled to do three minutes on the treadmill. Last week, he was up to 16 minutes and at a higher speed. He said he is at 80 percent.

"I feel like myself," he said.

But Conticelli and his family now face new challenges, including bills likely to reach six figures.

"We have seen the power of prayer with our own eyes," said Paula Conticelli, who anointed her youngest son with holy oil from head to toe in the hospital, read Bible verses and prayed over him every day. "There's no way prayer has not been the answer and God has not had a hand on him."

She said help has come in all forms and from all directions.

Immediately after the accident, the 14 fraternity brothers who also made the trip rallied to Conticelli's side. They arranged to have him moved from a clinic to a hospital. They talked with doctors until his family arrived. They kept vigil.

"All day, people were taking shifts, staying there," said Joe LaBruno, Conticelli's big brother at the fraternity. "We had two brothers there at all times, rotating."

LaBruno also made what he called "the hardest phone call of my life." He knew that Conticelli's older brother, Matthew, 17, had been killed in a motorcycle accident in 2002 in Queens. Now, he had to break this news to Conticelli's mother.

Paula Conticelli was asleep when the phone rang at 6:30 a.m.

"Tell me what it is," she said after she heard LaBruno's voice. "Just give me what I've got to know."

The phone connection got cut off three times while they talked.

Other problems soon followed.

Paula Conticelli's passport had expired. So her boss at Bullet Security in Nanuet and his wife got in touch with the State Department to get it renewed within a few hours. The couple also paid for four airline tickets - for her, her eldest son, Robert, a cousin, Amanda Ruiz de Somocurcio, and de Somocurcio's father, Jose.

While Conticelli's mother and brother attended to him, Amanda Ruiz de Somocurcio made arrangements to fly him back in an air ambulance to New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan three days after the accident. Her father, who speaks fluent Spanish and worked as a respiratory therapist in New Jersey for 30 years, translated for both the family and the doctors.

"We didn't know which way it would go," de Somocurcio said, noting Conticelli had swelling in the brain and developed pneumonia.

StudentCity.com, the travel agency that handled the young man's trip, paid for their meals, hotel and transportation in Cancun. In the ensuing weeks, neighbors brought food over to the Conticelli house virtually every day. They've helped with errands and moved furniture around the home to make it easier for Conticelli to move back in, which he did last week.

The family has set up a fund to cover the young man's medical costs, which total $50,000 from Mexico alone.

Paula Conticelli doesn't even want to think about how much the bills from New York-Presbyterian and Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw, to which Conticelli was transferred April 17 after he came out of his coma, will cost.

Conticelli had traveler's insurance, which he bought for $40 when he booked his trip. He also has insurance through his stepfather and his biological father, but how much will be covered is not clear.

Soon after they returned from spring break, Conticelli's fraternity brothers began selling wristbands, modeled after Lance Armstrong's Livestrong wristbands to show support for cancer survivors, to collect money for Conticelli's family.

They've raised $1,500 by selling 500 black wristbands that read "Stay Strong Paul." Several of the brothers have also driven to Rockland to visit him at the hospital.

"It's not like it's a close ride," Conticelli said. "They up my spirits."

Ironically, Paula Conticelli opposed her son's joining a fraternity. She admits she was wrong. She's seen the loyalty and love up close.

"I felt like I've had 23 kids without giving birth to them," she said.

Conticelli was released from the hospital last week, although he will still go to Helen Hayes for physical therapy. These days, he said he is dealing with self-doubt and hurtful rumors circulating about him more than any physical pain.

"I keep questioning everything I did," he said. "Did I look both ways when I crossed the street?"

Recently, he's heard nasty rumors that he was to blame for the accident because he was playing games in the middle of the road. Others say he's brain-dead.

These things hurt "when you're struggling to get your life back," said Conticelli, a 2005 graduate of North Rockland High School.

But he is back at home now and plans to return to the University of Delaware in the fall.

As for the man who hit him, the family says that he's in jail, awaiting trial. Apparently, he is remorseful. The man's mother and siblings called daily while Conticelli was in the hospital in Mexico.

"He has a big price to pay," said Conticelli, who wants to see him serve prison time and enter rehab.

In the past weeks, Conticelli has been made aware of what his loved ones, friends and neighbors have done for him and his family. He is deeply grateful. His mother, Paula, knows some good will come from her son's brush with death. She has decided to become an organ donor.

"I would have to say my faith, a wonderful therapist and incredible friends and family helped me pull it all together," she said. "I really believed God would not put me through another loss."

'Breaking' spring break norms

"I got hammered on Spring Break" - and it's a GOOD thing!

The Illinois Alpha SigEps may not have gotten much face time on NBC, but they had a very successful "Alternative Spring Break" building houses in Florida.

'Breaking' spring break norms - News

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'Breaking' spring break norms

Students travel, commit to service during Alternative Spring Break

By Ebonique Wool

One week is all the time University students have for spring break, and it goes fast.

Many students go home and sleep in for the week, and others go on trips to Cancun or other vacation hot spots.

But some students choose to make a difference in other people's lives.

Alternative Spring Break at the University was founded in 1989 by a group of students who wanted to help Central American refugees in Brownville, Texas.

Now, the Alternative Spring Break program offers as many as 17 trips, going to places like Miami and New Orleans to help with the gutting and building of houses for those in need.

There are many different reasons students choose to participate in the Alternative Spring Break program, but one of the most common is to have the opportunity to help others and have a positive effect on their lives.

"It's something everyone should try at least once in their life," said Jake Hamlin, sophomore in LAS and member of Sigma Phi Epsilon.

He, along with 33 other of his fraternity members, went to Miami over spring break to help build houses for families who did not have the means to afford them. They worked with Habitat for Humanity and lived in a nearby church with other volunteer members.

Community service is important to the fraternity and they encouraged their members to participate in the trip.

"We see the inherent value in service," said Rich Pasquesi, junior in Engineering and fellow member of Sigma Phi Epsilon. "The brotherhood formed on a trip like this is wonderful. You can form stories to remember."

Students were also sent to New Orleans, La., to help rebuild and fix houses damaged from Hurricane Katrina. Students gutted houses and removed rubble to help speed up the rebuilding process.

"You really get in touch with reality and see that not everyone is as blessed as you are," said Mitchell Farag, freshman in LAS.

For Farag, the Alternative Spring Break program presented the opportunity to do something he had been unable to do before.

"I had wanted to help out with Hurricane Katrina since before I got to college," Farag said. "You can see your results and know that you are directly helping someone. That is my main motivation."

The Alternative Spring Break trips offer a variety of ways to help others while taking volunteers to interesting places. During their free time, students were able to walk around Bourbon Street and the French Quarter in New Orleans and others were able to lay out on South Beach in Miami.

These students believe they made a difference in another person's life and are fulfilled from the experience.

"I wanted to do something different than the regular spring break," said Hamlin. "I think it's a great way to expand your horizons."

Today Show spring break video

In case you missed it...
We found the Today Show's spring break video at MSN video. We have to say that they focused more on the topic of girls who are pounding nails rather than going crazy on the beach. there is at least one Sig Ep t-shirt in evidence (at 2:00 in - don't blink!), and Richard Pasquesi from Illinois Alpha has a sound bite (at about 2:08).

Not exactly a big deal interview, but it beats another "drunk on the beach" story.

MSN video Link to "Girls gone wise?"

IL Alpha Sig Eps in "Alternative Spring Break"

Good News about SigEps and Spring Break. Our sources tell us to look for an interview on the Saturday Edition of the "Today" show (NBC) as well.

Miami: Petrova, Stepanek assist volunteers in building a home
March 23, 2007

MIAMI – Sony Ericsson WTA Tour’s Nadia Petrova and ATP’s Radek Stepanek met Thursday morning with the Habitat for Humanity of Greater Miami at the Scott-Carver Homes site in Liberty City to assist with the building of a house for a low-income family.

The two tennis players, joined by 34 students on spring break from the University of Illinois Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, contributed on several tasks for over an hour, including drilling and hammering dry wall.

Murphy Jensen, former ATP professional and current host of the Tennis Channel’s Open Access show, was also on-site to provide assistance while doing a special piece for the network.

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Miami is an ecumenical Christian ministry which builds homes in partnership with low-income families in need of a decent place to live. Miami Habitat was formed in 1989 and is one of over 2,000 Habitat affiliates nationwide.

Bob Larson's Tennis News | Miami: Petrova, Stepanek assist volunteers in building a home