Geneseo volleyball player reported the hazing because she said she was abandoned by teaammates, passed out, and was taken to hospital by strangers: http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/SUNY-Geneseo-hazing/JT82wmEtF0eWWWdJvOr7tw.cspx
Geneseo, N.Y. – The SUNY Geneseo freshman who reported a hazing incident to Geneseo police says she passed out in her own vomit after her fellow volleyball players refused to walk her back to her dorm.
13WHAM obtained the student’s statement Wednesday.
In it, she claims the SUNY Geneseo women’s volleyball team held an off-campus party earlier this month in which freshman players were handcuffed, blindfolded and forced to drink shots of liquor.
11 female students have since been charged with misdemeanors.
The alleged victim says, “I stumbled and I hit my head on the table and I hit my tooth on something … The liquid hurt my tooth because it was chipped when I hit it.”
She says she was then left alone to walk back to her dorm, but didn’t make it 30 feet before passing out on the grass.
She says after a group of 2 or 3 people found her she was taken to the hospital to have her stomach pumped.
Livingston County District Attorney Greg McCaffrey says the student had a blood alcohol content 3 times the legal limit to drive.
“I think at this party, there was more than just binge drinking,” McCaffrey said.
One student who told 13WHAM she was friends with the volleyball players said the whole story has been overblown.
Some fellow students agree.
“They’re college girls, they’re going to party,” said SUNY Geneseo student Nick Stefano. “Just because they play a sport they shouldn’t have been held accountable for something they’re not, they’re just students having fun.”
Not so says SUNY Geneseo student Jaclyn Hellreich.
“I don’t know if it’s criminal … but it’s not something that is done here and it’s not something that we accept,” Hellreich said.
McCaffrey says he has no intention of seeking jail time in this case, but hopes it serves as a lesson.
“Someone in that condition could possibly die and it has happened here at SUNY Geneseo in the past so to say this was blown out of proportion is a gross misstatement,” he said.
The students are due back in court next month.
