Wed, Dec 03 2008
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Published May 09, 2008 11:42 am - CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — Shelley Ross will spend this Mother’s Day in tears. It’s the way she has spent the last three of these holidays, reading cards her son David “Nick” Ross gave her before his death in a high-speed car crash in 2004. Drinking is not the only danger for teens today Recklessness, speeding, inattention contribute to list of teen deaths By Melissa Dunson
and Derek Spellman news@joplinglobe.com CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — Shelley Ross will spend this Mother’s Day in tears. It’s the way she has spent the last three of these holidays, reading cards her son David “Nick” Ross gave her before his death in a high-speed car crash in 2004. “It hurts today like it did then — it will never go away,” Shelley said. “I will hurt for that boy until the day I get to see him again.” Nick’s bedroom stands unchanged since that wreck. He was 18 years old. His clothes still hang in the closet. His truck still sits in the garage. Shelley and her husband, Doug Ross, think they did everything they could to protect their son. But Shelley can’t help but wonder why that wasn’t enough. Nick was riding with two high school friends to a Carl Junction basketball game in Lebanon the day of the wreck. The driver, Christopher Gibson, 18, was allegedly speeding when he lost control, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. They crossed the median and struck an oncoming car. There was no evidence of drugs or alcohol being involved. “Many parents are in the situation where their kids are the cause of the wreck, but we don’t know what else we could have done,” Shelley said. She doesn’t understand why her son, a leader on the football field, was sitting in the backseat and not wearing a seat belt. She doesn’t understand why the teens were speeding. As significant as alcohol and drugs are in teen deaths, especially car wrecks, they don’t explain away the entire list of area teens who have died in recent years. Sober high school students die, too, often while engaging in activities that seem so obviously dangerous to adults. According to the case records of the Missouri State Highway Patrol: *Samantha Dallas, 16, Stella, was window surfing — sitting on the passenger side window and hanging her body out of the car while it was being driven — when the 19-year-old driver missed a turn going 45 miles per hour and hit a ditch on Nov. 27, 2006. Samantha was thrown from the car. She did not survive. 
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