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Fresno State Theta Chi member taken off life support

Here is the excerpt from Fresno Action News, ABC-TV

 

Philip Dhanens died Sunday at St Agnes Medical Center. His family says he was being kept alive on life support so they could donate his organs.

Action News has spoken with Dhanens’ mother. She said he was just about two weeks into his freshman year at Fresno State.

She says Dhanens was starting the pledging process with the Theta Chi fraternity at Fresno State.

On Friday the group held a party after a formal dinner at its off-campus house. Details about what happened at that party are unclear but Dhanens’ mother said she was called at 4 a.m. Saturday. She says the staff at St. Agnes Medical Center told her Dhanens suffered severe brain damage.

University officials said late Sunday in a news release the fraternity is barred from any official campus activities until an investigation is complete….There is no word yet on whether any charges will be filed.

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. In April of 2024, the Alaska Press Club awarded him first place in the Best Columnist division and Best Humorist, second place.

He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Warsaw, Poland and Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer is a former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird and former managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com and in his weekly column "Far from Randolph" in the Winchester Star-Gazette of Randolph County, Indiana.

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