Spring Break
Report clears liability in student injury
By: Erin Wood
Issue date: 10/9/07 Section: News
The results of an investigation released Friday cleared Texas A&M Fish Camp of wrongdoing concerning a student's accident.
Betsy Helbing, a freshman business major from Austin, fell 30 feet from the Brazos River bridge at Highway 21. Helbing was with a group of students from her Fish Camp Discussion Group when she fell.
Kevin Jackson, the assistant vice president for student affairs at A&M, said that the report released Friday determined that there was no responsibility by Fish Camp for the accident.
A staff member from the Department of Student Activities and a staff member from Multicultural Services jointly conducted the investigation and submitted their report to the director of student activities.
"The investigation found no substantial information that indicated that the student organization was responsible for the accident that led to Betsy Helbing's fall," Jackson said. "We found no information that indicated that a student organization had violated a university policy relevant to that incident."
Jackson said that student affairs is working to help students understand the decision-making processes they are involved in related to the activities they're looking into.
"We have to help our students understand the whole idea behind effective decision making and action taking," he said. "So whether you are going to the river bridge or whatever, you need to look at it and understand what are the inherent risks and make that decision of whether or not you want to engage in that activity."
He said that student affairs works with students at every opportunity.
"We're concerned about lots of things such as the river bridge, drowsy driving, operating cars when they've had too much to drink and students trying to beat the train," Jackson said. "There is just a whole host of things that we work with our students on and that we want our students to understand are potentially dangerous situations."
Ultimately it's up to the students to make safe decisions, he said.
Betsy Helbing, a freshman business major from Austin, fell 30 feet from the Brazos River bridge at Highway 21. Helbing was with a group of students from her Fish Camp Discussion Group when she fell.
Kevin Jackson, the assistant vice president for student affairs at A&M, said that the report released Friday determined that there was no responsibility by Fish Camp for the accident.
A staff member from the Department of Student Activities and a staff member from Multicultural Services jointly conducted the investigation and submitted their report to the director of student activities.
"The investigation found no substantial information that indicated that the student organization was responsible for the accident that led to Betsy Helbing's fall," Jackson said. "We found no information that indicated that a student organization had violated a university policy relevant to that incident."
Jackson said that student affairs is working to help students understand the decision-making processes they are involved in related to the activities they're looking into.
"We have to help our students understand the whole idea behind effective decision making and action taking," he said. "So whether you are going to the river bridge or whatever, you need to look at it and understand what are the inherent risks and make that decision of whether or not you want to engage in that activity."
He said that student affairs works with students at every opportunity.
"We're concerned about lots of things such as the river bridge, drowsy driving, operating cars when they've had too much to drink and students trying to beat the train," Jackson said. "There is just a whole host of things that we work with our students on and that we want our students to understand are potentially dangerous situations."
Ultimately it's up to the students to make safe decisions, he said.
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