To a kind man grieving about the loss of his friend:

Thank you for your note. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your feelings.

An awful accident occurred. This is a community newspaper. We report breaking news, and we report efforts to help at awful accidents. That is the first step.

The boots of a man are shown in the newspaper of February  5. But what the picture shows is the earnest efforts of a public servant trying to save that man’s life.

This was a tragic accident. The only good to come out of it is to know that there beside him, working so hard to try to resuscitate him, was Lead Deputy Simmons who administered CPR for 30 minutes. There was a moment of hope when they detected a pulse and sent him in the ambulance.

Any parent would be grateful to know how hard Deputy Simmons worked to come to their son’s aid. We are part of this community too. We were deeply concerned as the deputy was giving CPR. We called the young man’s family so we could be sure they were aware of what had happened. A caring person was on the scene doing what they would have wanted to do themselves if they had been there.

Being a community newspaper means we celebrate the life of our kids here. We celebrated Chris Hribar helping Simba with the softball scoreboard at Frazier Mountain Park, and his art sculpture at  Frazier Mountain High School. We celebrated his graduation. We celebrate our community kids’ successes, and share stories about their efforts along the way.

This is a deep loss to our community, and a shock to all who knw and loved Chris Hribar.

We are a small town. When something like this happens, it hurts.

We invite families and friends to share stories to celebrate his life, tell their memories and how much he meant to those who loved him.

Patric Hedlund,
Editor, The Mountain Enterprise

This is part of the February 5, 2021 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you.