Tragic lesson: 'Your life can be altered in a split second'

0 Comments | USA TODAY, November, 2005 | by Mary Beth Marklein

If Angie Gratzl could make kids understand one thing about the dangers of underage drinking, it's that bad things can happen to you.

She knows, because they happened to her son. Some 15 months ago, during move-in time last year at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, her son Jason, then 18, drank too much at a house party and fell from a second-floor balcony, where a friend told police he had gone to vomit.

He suffered serious head injuries. After being rushed to the emergency room, he spent about a year in hospitals and rehab centers, returning to his mom's home in Burlington, Wis., in September. There, he is undergoing continued therapy.

Jason Gratzl had planned to major in engineering. Today, his mom hopes he will someday be able to attend some type of...