Grim students deal with loss

Danette Goulet

CORONA DEL MAR -- The mood was as grim as the weather Wednesday

morning at Corona del Mar High School, where students listened to the sad

and soothing sounds of James Taylor while they created a memorial for

Brian Campbell, the friend and classmate they lost because of an accident

over the weekend.

“Everybody seems to be going in phases,” said Lauren Nielson, 18. “At

first they seem to be at grips with things, then 10 minutes later be in

hysterics.”

Nielson was one of a dozen students in the school’s center quad

Wednesday morning working on a memorial to Campbell, who was pronounced

dead at Hoag Hospital on Tuesday morning.

A senior at Corona del Mar High, Campbell fell Saturday night and hit

his head when he was getting out of a friend’s car.

The blow, which didn’t even leave a mark, caused a cerebral hemorrhage

that took his life, said his grandmother, Collene Campbell.

The tragic outcome of a bump on the head may mean the arteries in his

brain had never healed properly from a surgery he had when he was 6

months old, doctors told the family.

As the many students who knew and loved the 17-year-old struggle to

deal with the loss, they are offering his family and each other support.

Concrete steps in the center of the quad were covered in messages of

love for Campbell, written in various colors of chalk, and banners that

read “We miss you Brian” graced the school walls.

Students wore green commemorative ribbons.

“It’s a Brian bow,” Nielson explained. “He’s Irish, and our other

choices were red and yellow, and they’ve been done.”

While school administrators have provided crisis counseling for

students, they are now trying to get distraught teens back on a regular

schedule and back into classes.

Students -- many of whom have asked to speak at Campbell’s memorial

service Saturday at Rose Hills Memorial Park -- will hold a service of

their own on campus Friday morning.

The memorial park is at 3888 Workman Mill Road, Whittier.