On Wednesday, May 19, 2010, a loving mother and father sat listening, sobbing, while two wonderful nurses explained the process of organ donation for which they were about to sign their recently turned 18 year old son over for. Only 12 hours earlier, the same two, surrounded by their family learned the agonizing truth, that the youngest son suffered from major brain damage, and it would likely progress.

In that 30 minutes they listened to the nurses explain the process, review the legal forms, and ask what seemed to be hundreds of required questions. They were rocks, dealing with a pain the like of which no one should ever have to.

I pondered the one minute that rushed through everyone's head, as they each, individually, realized that Seth, was now gone. I watched as family member after family member said their personal goodbyes, and leaned on each other looking for reasoning and consolation.

All this... the pain, the grief, the sorrow for what? Heroin!

The relentless search of a child for that euphoric feeling of bliss and happiness easier obtained from a drug then from life itself. As all can attest, the pains of a teenager far out way those of a seasoned adult. But how did we get here?

The story, although short and true, is also all to common. Seth first started with simple over-the-counter medications like soma and vicodine and progressed to oxycotin. Why not, at $5 a pill, and readily available at school and from his friends, they were easy. No mess, nothing to hide, and the "Narc's" at school would never know. That was less than two years ago.

As parents, our first real knowledge came when Seth was suspended from school for assaulting a teacher after she took his cell phone. As that evening wore on we realized he wasn't acting right and was very violent. 911, and a trip to the hospital (and a couple of days at Mesa Vista) we discovered that Seth had been using up to 5 somas at a time, (we had no idea at that point).

We worked with our primary doctor, our insurance carrier, and psychiatrist. We had him home schooled and tried to monitor his friends.
In December of 2009 Seth was arrested at the El Cajon Trolley Station for the use and distribution of heroin by El Cajon Police. While trying to book him into juvenile hall, he was refused because he tested positive for drugs (I would have thought that was a no brainer, but...) and was released back to his mother. He was just two weeks from his 18th birthday.

In February of 2010, Seth was enrolled in a rehab ranch in Ramona, Ca  where he spent 3 days before he walked away from there, and hid out for an additional three days before returning home. Now as an adult (well, and 18 year old), he had the legal right to walk out, and we had no recourse to make him stay.

In April of 2010, Seth was arrested for burglary and spent nine days in jail (which was acutually a good thing in the fact that he was detoxed because of it).

Now is when the family's frustration really starts to grow. With cases pending in both the juvenile and criminal courts, it was hoped that Seth would be sentenced to probation and mandated to a rehab for a period of time (even if it would cost the family). Instead, the juvenile court kept putting off his case to wait and see what the criminal court would do, and the criminal court gave him probation and community service, but no mandatory rehab.
As a condition of his probation, Seth had to do community service, for which he had to report to the El Cajon Trolley Center (ring a bell) to be "picked up" by San Diego County Probation officers to be taken out to do trash removal or other assigned tasks for the day.

Seth was dropped off Monday May 17 at 07:30 by his mother at the El Cajon Trolley Center where she saw the Probation vans waiting. Two hours later she was contacted by Seth to be told he wasn't allowed to board the van because he was shaking, and the officer suspected something. Seth was not tested, or taken into custody at that time (a serious issue).

Mom picked him up at 09:30 and realized he was agitated and argumentative. They drove home where he stated, and she agreed, he need to get some sleep.

After checking on him several times, and finally deciding that it was time to get up (at approximately 3pm) mom realized she couldn't awaken Seth, and rolled him over to discover his lips and nail beds were blue. 911 was called, and emergency responders provided medical assistance and transported to Grossomont Hospital, which brings us back to the beginning of this Story.




As a member of an active family, trips to the desert and river were common even as an infant. This would most likely explain his daredevils approach to things he enjoyed like cliff jumping at the river and jumping everything with his quad. He loved to ride in his dad's buggy at the desert, and always wanted to go faster. Seth loved life. He enjoyed being around people, no matter if you were 5 or 75, he could start a conversation and have you laughing. He loved to pull pranks. He liked to ride in the passenger seat of the car with his monkey mask on just to get a reaction from people driving by.

Seth looked up to his brothers and their friends, especially Steven and Blake. He also liked hanging with his cousin Kory and friend Richard.
Seth was a social butterfly. He wanted to be around people; he couldn't stand to be sitting at home. You only had to be around him once to want to be around him more, people were drawn to him. Seth was drawn to people who" needed" him, He would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. This is what got Seth into trouble, he started to hang with the wrong people, people who took advantage of his willingness to do for them. Seth got wrapped up in the" Feel Good, solve it all now" feeling of drugs that his friends gave him.

We, as his family tried everything we knew to do to help him, what we didn't know was that we couldn't, not by ourselves. Seth tried to stay clean after his time in jail ( a real eye opener for him, he said he would do anything to not go back to jail and wanted to get his life together), But thanks to friends that "needed him " He got sucked back in.....Back to the beginning of this whole story.

Seth loved his family. Mom and he would sit up late at night talking. He liked to work with his Dad and then go and have lunch. Seth loved his brothers very much. Seth wanted OUT of this life of drugs, just this monster was bigger than he was.

Only the love and mercy of God got Seth out! May you rest in peace.