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TELEVISION
VOLUME 118 ISSUE 144
KUJH wins broadcast awards
The University of Kansas television station, KUJH, won five first-place awards from the Kansas Association of Broadcasters this year. Kansas won the best station, even though it didn't win the most awards overall. Students discuss the difficulties and inspiration behind their award-winning stories.
Army Sergeant Matt Lammers, an Iraq War veteran from Olathe accepted an award on behalf of Senator Bob Dole. The award was presented by the Department of Special Education as a part of its 50th anniversary celebrations. Dole was unable to attend because of scheduling conflicts.
FULL STORY ON PAGE 3A
CAMPUS
FULL STORY ON PAGE 8A
Veteran accepts award on behalf of Sen. Bob Dole
ASSOCIATED PRESS
FULL AP STORY PAGE 8B
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All contents, unless stated otherwise.
© 2008 The University Daily Kansan
BY THOR NYSTROM
tnystrom@kansan.com
Editor's note: Kansan reporter Thor Nystrom was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder his senior year of high school in Minnesota and prescribed the drug Adderall. When he developed anxiety, a side effect of Adderall, he was prescribed Paxil. The two drugs, mixed with the beer he consumed as a KU freshman, led to behavior that culminated in a fight in a Lawrence parking lot, his arrest and his entry into the mental health system. Using his own medical records, police records, his own diaries, interviews with family and his own recollections, he wrote this account of what he calls his descent into the "depths of hell" a journey with an ending that neither he nor his parents saw coming. This is his graduation story.
Seven and a half months before the day I should have died I am in the parking lot of Naismith Hall. I am a 19-year-old freshman. I have just gotten a ride home from the bar, and I am drunk. I have again ignored the red sticker on my orange bottle of Paxil warning against drinking alcohol with the medication. My head throbs, and my thoughts race.
A group of students across the parking lot yell and swear. I walk over and tell them to shut up. They curse me. I curse back. I take a swing at the tall one, and I miss wildly. His friend lands a blow to the left side of my forehead that knocks me to my knees.
I rise and put my hands behind my back and tell them to take their best shot.
A tall guy with dark hair hits a glancing shot across my jaw and I stagger. I scream: HIT ME. HIT ME. They close in.
His friend lands a shot directly into my right eye socket, and I drop heavily. I stay on the ground. They laugh and they kick. One lands in my diaphragm. My wind is gone, and it feels like I am breathing out of a straw. I'm drooling blood that pools with dirt on the concrete near my face.
Soon I hear the sirens. An officer puts me in handeuffs and drives me to the hospital. We're at the counter, and I am disoriented and sad and as drunk as I have ever been. I nod toward his holstered gun and ask him to kill me.
"Shoot me in the head. No one has to know."
shoot me in the head. No one has to know. The officer puts his hands on my shoulder and looks me in the eye.
"We're going to get you help; OK?"
I'm transported to Stormont Vail Regional Medical Center in Topeka via squad car in the early morning hours of October 10, 2003.
I meet with the psychiatrist on a Sunday morning. We are alone in a sparsely decorated room. I take the empty chair across the table from him.
"Why did you ask the police officer to kill you?"
SEE MYSTROM ON PAGE 4A
Photo by Rachel Anne Seymour/KANSAN
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