Evelyn Piazza’s voice was calm as she asked LSU students at the “End Hazing Now” event on Tuesday to imagine her son Timothy Piazza’s grievous injuries – which ultimately led to his death – from a fall down the stairs after being hazed.
“You rush to the hospital and see your brother on life support,” Piazza said. “Neckbrace, bruises and blood on his body and head. He has a subdural hematoma, which is bleeding in his brain. His spleen is ruptured, actually shattered. He has a punctured lung, and he needs a blood transfusion because, as it turns out, more than 80% of his body’s blood is in his abdomen.”
Timothy Piazza was a student at Penn State University in 2017. He pledged Beta Theta Pi, and was on his first night of pledgeship when his fraternity brothers forced him to consume large amounts of alcohol on Feb. 2, 2017. Due to his highly intoxicated state, he fell down a flight of stairs that led to the basement.
When his fraternity brothers discovered Piazza, instead of getting help, they put him on a couch and repeatedly tried to wake him up by hitting and slapping him. Piazza later got up and tried to move to the lobby, but fell into an iron railing and headfirst into a door, further injuring himself.
According to a timeline of events from The Daily Collegian, Penn State’s student newspaper, only one member of the fraternity expressed serious concern in the basement that Piazza needed medical attention before members finally called 911 later the next morning.
All of these incidents were filmed on closed-circuit security cameras inside the fraternity house.
Piazza’s mother’s visibly painful recounting of her son’s injuries occurred as part of End Hazing Now, an event sponsored by Greek Life that featured Piazza and LSU hazing victim Max Gruver’s parents, Rae Ann and Steve Gruver, on Tuesday in the Student Union.
The Gruvers spoke first at the event. After a brief video of news coverage about hazing, Rae Ann Gruver began by telling the audience about Max and how he enjoyed sports, journalism and rap music.
“Max was ready to start the next chapter of his life, but the next chapter of his life was very short-lived,” Gruver said.
The Gruvers showed a picture of Max and his mother hugging. Rae Ann Gruver said the photo was the last opportunity she had to feel his arms around her and tell him how proud of him she was.
She then went through every step of the night leading up to Max’s death. He and his fellow Phi Delta Theta pledges showed up for “Bible Study,” where they had to answer questions about the fraternity’s history and name letters in the Greek alphabet.
Starting from the basement, they were led up the stairs and doused in hot sauce and mustard. The active members forced the pledges to do wall-sits while they ran across their legs, Gruver said.
Then came the questions. With every wrong answer, pledges had to drink from a bottle of 190-proof alcohol for as long as 10 seconds. Max Gruver was forced to consume between 16-20 “pulls” from the bottles and his blood alcohol content was .495 that night.
Rather than call 911 after checking his pulse, Max’s fraternity brothers left him on a couch to “sleep it off,” but he never woke up.
“The actions taken by these hazers resulted in my son’s death,” Rae Ann Gruver said. “Max died on that couch between 4 to 5 a.m.”
Steve Gruver later spoke about what hazing looks like, and laws concerning hazing and medical amnesty, which protects someone who calls 911 in a hazing-related emergency from liability.
Since Gruver’s death, hazing laws in Louisiana are now some of the strongest in the country. At the time of Max Gruver’s death in 2017, the penalty for having more than three chickens on a property in a residential area was more severe than the penalty for hazing.
“There was more value placed on chickens than it was for human lives when it came to hazing,” Steve Gruver said.
During a question and answer session after the event, the Gruvers and Piazza all agreed Greek Life should continue to exist on college campuses. Rae Ann said her own Greek experience was exceptional and that it can help students bond and make lifelong friends. Steve Gruver added that he had seen many “great things” from Greek Life.
“If hazing continues to go unchecked, you guys won’t be able to get insurance. You don’t have insurance, you don’t have an organization,” Steve Gruver said. “We’re here to help it exist. If we wanted Greek life to go away, we wouldn’t be up on this stage talking to you at all.”
After the event, the audience gave a standing ovation for the parents. Student Government President William Jewell said the event helped show students the escalation of hazing from seemingly harmless activities to dangerous abuse.
“When you can hear the personal testimony of two different families, one of whom lost their son on this campus not too long ago, it really changes your mindset,” Jewell said.
Kinesiology sophomore and Sigma Chi member Alec Porras said he did not know what to expect before the event, but was moved by their speeches.
“The message was super powerful, and got me really thinking about how to make a difference and ensure that in my fraternity something like that doesn’t start up,” Porras said. “It’s definitely going to move a lot of people and hopefully change LSU’s campus for the better.”