When RU senior Chris Skinner spoke to his fellow students at a Spring Break Awareness program sponsored by BACCHUS (Boost Alcohol Consciousness Concerning the Health of University Students), he didn’t tell them not to drink and party because, he says, “That’s what most college kids do.”

“What I say is, ‘Have fun, but be responsible – look after one another, be a friend.’ One person in a group can give up drinking for a night and look after the others. I want them to remember that every decision they make has the potential to change the course of their life forever.”

Then he tells them about a summer evening two years ago, when he made a series of decisions that, indeed, changed his life forever.

It was after a fraternity brother’s wedding in Bridgewater, Virginia – after the reception with food, dancing and drink – when Skinner and his friend, B.J., headed out to the friend’s home, two miles away, where they planned to spend the night.

They were both intoxicated when they got into B.J.’s car. They rolled the windows down and turned up the radio, and B.J. drove off.

“We were having a good ol’ time,” Skinner remembers. “Arms out the windows, music blasting”

He was dipping tobacco and didn’t have a cup to spit in, so he unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned his head out the window. The radio was playing the Dave Matthews song “Crash Into Me.”

“Seconds later, on the last turn, only 700 yards from the house we were going to, going about 45 miles an hour, the tires hit gravel, B.J. lost control, the car spun out and flipped over, and I was thrown out.”

B.J., who was wearing his seatbelt, was unhurt. Skinner suffered a spinal-cord injury and is paralyzed from the neck down.

Skinner graduated from high school with a 3.0 average. “I was a popular, good-looking guy,” he says, “a leader, an athlete – varsity basketball, baseball, golf. Didn’t drink much. My parents were strict – I had a 12 o’clock curfew.”

He came to RU as a freshman when he was 17. He says, “Mom dropped me off and it was, like, wow – total freedom, no rules, no limits.”

That first semester, he pledged an off-campus fraternity, where he says the priority wasn’t education, but to party, get girls and socialize. His first-semester grade-point average was 2.1. Second semester, it was 1.6. Third semester, it was .8 and he was suspended. And the following summer changed all that.

“When I first woke up after my accident,” he says, “I thought, ‘God – I’m supposed to be a professional athlete!’ I woke up and I was a man trapped in a baby’s body. I was furious – I cried and cussed. I thought, ‘Why me?’”

Eventually he thought, “Well, why not me? I still have a life and opportunities – they’ll just be different.”

Now he’s back at RU, looking forward to graduating in December. And he’s still a popular, good-looking guy, and a leader, for sure. But he’s grown up.

“I’ve been forced to sit still and evaluate my capabilities,” he says, “and I’ve learned and grown emotionally and spiritually. I’m excited about the future, and I know what I want to do with my life – I know why I’m here.”

His mission is to impress upon college and high school students the importance of making responsible choices and has dedicated his life to speaking before groups of young people. He says his wheelchair is an attention-getter – it makes people listen.

They listen when he tells them that, on the night of the accident, he and B.J. were thinking the worst thing that could happen was that they could be busted for DUI. They weren’t thinking that one of them could die, or be paralyzed … or that they could kill someone else.

They listen when he tells them to picture themselves in that situation and ask themselves whether they’d have made the same decision he made. And they listen when he asks them, “How many times have you made a similar decision that could have left you like I am now?”

— Shireen Parsons