hey everyone...I lost a really close friend of mine this weekend due to carbon monoxide...please keep him in your prayers....he was a really freaking awesome guy and a real asset to this world...we lost him so young...but please keep him in your prayers!!!!!

 

Here's a pic of all of us on Sat. at the FIU football game...he's the one with the glasses...this is prolly one of the last pictures taken of him...

 

 

 

________

Link

 

The bodies of two popular Florida International University students were found at dawn Sunday in a parked van with its engine running, the apparent victims of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.

 

Janelle Bertot, 19, of Weston, and her 25-year-old companion, Tony Perez of Miami, were discovered in the 1993 Mercury Villager in an outdoor parking lot by a BSO deputy making routine checks at the Weston Town Center.

 

The van's exhaust system was ''in disrepair,'' according to a BSO news release.

 

The minivan was parked in a remote area under some large shade trees. The van's windows were fogged up, and visible were smudgy remnants of where someone in the past had written out the Greek letters of Perez's fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi.

 

The deputy tried to rouse the couple, but Bertot and Perez were dead.

 

''There was still gas in the car,'' said BSO spokesman Hugh Graf. ``They probably just fell asleep. There was no smell, nothing. That's why they call it the silent killer.''

 

FIU spokeswoman Maydel Santana-Bravo confirmed Perez and Bertot were both students at the main University Park campus in western Miami-Dade County.

 

''They were apparently popular and very loved students who were very involved in the university,'' she said.

 

FIU will offer counseling to distraught students and faculty.

 

Perez was president of the Pi Kappa Phi at FIU. Bertot, a member of the Phi Sigma Sigma sorority, was named Freshman of the Year in 2003, according to the sorority's website. The couple had been dating for about a month, friends said.

 

Fellow student Stefano Fusaro remembers Bertot as a dedicated member of Phi Sigma Sigma, FIU's first women's sorority.

 

Bertot, a sophomore, ''always put everyone else before her,'' said Fusaro, a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon.

 

Bertot, whose name had appeared on the honor roll at Western High School in Davie, served as alumnae chair for her sorority's executive council and freshmen representative for its judicial board, according to the sorority's website.

 

The deaths came at the end of the university's Homecoming week, which closed with a dance on Saturday. Presidents of the school's Greek societies met Sunday and canceled a Homecoming Awards Ceremony scheduled for Sunday evening.

 

Perez, a senior, worked hard at uniting the student body, urging them to get involved with events on campus, said Danny Sanchez, 24, advisor for Pi Kappa Phi at University Park.

 

''It's a tremendous loss to the university,'' he said. ''He had a lot of school pride and was a very caring individual,'' said Sanchez, who had known Perez for about five years.

 

``He was always about making this a better place to be a student. He was the kind of person everyone wanted to be like.''

 

Perez, a 1997 Southwest High graduate, was known for speaking out for students shunned by some. According to press accounts, he recently defended Delta Lambda Phi, a national gay fraternity, which opened its first Florida chapter at FIU in May.

 

In the rain on Sunday, dozens of cars, many with Greek letters painted on the windshields, parked along Southwest 102nd Avenue. Visibly upset students walked solemnly to Perez's home, some hand in hand. They cried and consoled each other.

 

A similar scene played out Sunday afternoon at the Bertot home on Diamond Terrace in a gated community in Weston.

 

In a separate case in September, a man and woman were found dead in a Pembroke Pines garage, overcome by carbon monoxide, police said. The Broward County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the deaths of Luc-Mary Augustin, 30, of Pembroke Pines, and Medgine Dorestan, 22, of Fort Lauderdale, accidental.

 

In August, a 20-year-old man died and his 18-year-old girlfriend was hospitalized after they were found in a closed Tamarac garage with a car running.

 

''If you have an exhaust system in poor condition, the carbon monoxide can collect and seek out crevices and voids in the passenger area and seep in,'' said Captain Ed Federkeil, with Broward Sheriff's Department of Fire Rescue and Emergency Services' Hazmat unit.

 

``When you have a car with exhaust problems sitting in an area where there's no breeze, the gas creates a toxic area and you virtually die in your sleep.

 

''Carbon monoxide is colorless, tasteless, odorless and very dangerous,'' Federkeil said.

Sorry man, he's in my prayers

Official FIU vs. Georgia Southern game pics:

 

http://www.fiusports.com/football/gsu/index.htm

God bless him.

Marisel... you have my sympathies.

 

I had read about it in the news early in the morning, but I just now came across your post. It made me acutely aware of two things: how small the world is... and how precious life is.

 

R.I.P., Tony and Janelle.

It made me acutely aware of two things: how small the world is... and how precious life is.

 

Same here. I've seen a lot of people pass on unexpectedly. One day they could be talking to you about life and the next.......

it's just so scary....one of my sisters and i were at his place that afternoon after the game....and how can I say this...my last memory of him will be...Thank you girls, I love you..MUAh...see ya later...

 

we were all going to meet together at a pikapp party to celebrate the end of homecoming....

 

he was my formal date....a friend who I actually spent two + hours in my car talking to him one night after the ale house....I keep thinking that this could have been me...

 

I'll miss him like crazy....I went to his funeral last night...and it wasn't him...it didn't look like him...he was such an energetic person...

 

Tony P.- I'll miss you sibling!!! Thanks for all the memories....thank you for stepping into my life and giving me the hope you gave me....your memory will live on...trust me, it will. I love you!

My best friend lost her two friends in a car accident last year so I know how this is. I've seen it. It's hard. Just remember the good times and be glad that you got to know someone like him. People like that don't come around all the time. I heard how he defended the gay frat and just by that, I saw how much of a good person he was. I am sure he's with God smiling down on you.

Just so you guys know...

 

there's going to be a memorial service for Tony and Janelle tomorrow (Thursday) at 730pm by the GC Fountain at FIU....

 

so if any of you want to go...please do.....

 

thanks.

my prayers are with him....may god bless him