On a sunny fall morning in 1991, sirens jolted me awake. I nearly fell out of my loft bed in room 7 of the University of Maryland’s Pi Kappa Alpha house, scrambling wildly to see what the chaos was about.
The scene outside didn’t look good. Someone was on the ground in front of a car, surrounded by flashing police, fire, and EMS vehicles. A crowd of Pi Kappa Alpha brothers spilled out onto the street and lawn.
I rushed downstairs to get more information and find out what happened. It was one of our brothers in the street, and I heard that the guys had been playing football on the front lawn, and he ran into the street to catch a ball. At the same time, a car was driving up Knox Road and hit him.
Outside the house, everyone seemed concerned and tried to get details from the first responders, but inside, the vibe was different. The guys were laughing as they peeked out the windows from the chapter room at the chaotic scene.
That was strange to me, but then I walked over to a bunch of brothers who were huddled around a video camera. They had captured the accident on film and were playing it back.
But why did they think it was funny that one of our brothers was hit by a car?
Well, it turns out it was all planned. They’d even filmed a couple of test runs. I hadn’t noticed when I went outside, but it was also one of our brothers who was driving the car.
The whole thing was faked. I watched and then got the real story. The brother who was hit by the car was supposed to go to National Guard duty for the weekend, and he wanted to get out of it so he could go to a sorority formal.
These idiots all got together and thought it was a good idea to fake a car accident, so this brother could get out of his obligations with the National Guard. And they were ridiculous enough to film it.
So insane and shortsighted to have probably all of the first responders for the town to mobilize for this fake accident.
Greek life detractors love to say that fraternity and sorority members buy their friends. Well, I would like to get a refund on some of them.
Originally published at https://shawncollins512.substack.com.
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