There were 10 teenagers in the SUV that night, hurtling toward summer. Crammed elbow-to-elbow from the cab to the luggage pit of a 1989 Chevrolet Blazer were five seniors and five juniors from Newport Harbor High School. They had been partying all night; many had been drinking; most were not wearing seat belts.
It was Friday, May 23, 1997. They were speeding along Irvine Avenue next to Upper Newport Bay. Behind the wheel was a varsity baseball player who didn't drink but was taking the curves too fast. Just after midnight, the Blazer struck a median and started tumbling. Seconds later, they lay scattered across the road or pinned beneath the mangled SUV. They had broken ribs and cracked skulls and ribbons of missing skin. One passenger, an 18-year-old honors student, was dead. Two others had severe head injuries.
Soon, there would be a ferocious debate about how far over the 35 mph speed limit the Blazer was traveling. About whether the driver deserved to pay with prison. Even in the inexhaustible annals of end-of-school tragedies, this one struck a deep chord -- perhaps because of its magnitude, and perhaps because Newport Harbor's rich-kid mystique suggested an archetypal tale of wealth, reckless youth and disaster.
For a while, Southern California would know the teenagers' names, would argue about them and pray for them.
When the cameras went away, most were able to proceed with their lives, the accident a terrible but receding memory. For others, the last 10 years have been more complicated.
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As Amanda Arthur, a high school junior, lay in a coma with a severe brain injury, week after week, doctors braced her mother, Chris Maese, for the possibility -- they believed even the likelihood -- that she would never wake up. Even if she did, they said, she would linger forever in a vegetative state.
Arthur was 17, the varsity song captain of the school pep squad. Her mother was unemployed, her stepfather a self-employed plumber, and she had no medical insurance.
More than two months after the crash, she woke up and said, "Hi, Mom." She began to smile with half her face, to recognize her family. Her recovery, which impressed people as miraculous, became the focus of a "20/20" episode. By September she had returned to Newport Harbor, and the next month she was crowned homecoming queen. Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers held a concert to help pay her bills.
