ATLANTA — When three Lakeside High students died in a Labor Day crash, it was an unimaginable loss.

“At that time, you just couldn’t imagine that this would ever happen again,” said Tracy Queen, co-president of the Parent Teacher Student Association.

But then in February, a fourth student died in another car crash. Less than three weeks later, a fifth student died in a wreck.

Ashley Gaitan, 16. Katie Gaitan, 17. Coral Lorenzo-Rosario, 17. Sophia Lekiachvili, 18. Guillermo Aguas-Bahena, 16.

“It almost feels like we can’t catch a break from it,” said Bella Perez, a senior at Lakeside who was friends with Lekiachvili. “It’s so personal because those are kids who are in my grade at my school, driving on a road that I’ve driven on before, with the same number of kids in the car that I’ve driven with.”

“None of us imagined that we could be where we are right now,” Queen said.

No matter how immense the tragedy, school goes on. Spring break is next week, and prom is after that. Then final exams. Graduation.

But there’s a sense that the Lakeside community in DeKalb County is bracing for what could come next. They had an assembly this week about safe driving. It was timed for before the break, when students will have more freedom — and a greater chance to make a tragic decision behind the wheel.

“We don’t know if something like that will happen again between now and the end of school,” said Kyle Marsh, co-president of the Lakeside High Student Government Association. “Sometimes (people ask me), ‘How do you stop this?’”

A question of choice

...continued

©2024 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.