Indiana expands Lifeline Law

A year ago, one Indiana University freshman died at her first college party. Rachael Fiege fell down a set of stairs, hitting her head. Her friends didn’t call 911 and by the next morning, Fiege died from internal bleeding in her brain.

“It was so hard watching the year go by and watching [Fiege's mom] suffer the way she suffered,” said Julia Ollikainen, Fiege's friend and Ball State sophomore psychology student. “No one should ever have to go through that.

“I went through depression and had a really hard time. Losing your 19-year-old friend is so hard and something so unexpected.”

In 2012, the Indiana General Assembly passed the Lifeline Law to try to prevent accidents like Fiege’s.

The Lifeline Law gives protection to any underage person who has been drinking if they call 911 for a medical emergency, according toindianalifeline.org. The law gives the caller immunity for underage possession and consumption and public intoxication, as long as they cooperate with the authorities on the scene.

Ollikainen said she thought if Fiege’s friends had known about the law, or had been in a better mindset to call 911, Fiege might not have died.

“I think [the law] is very important,” Ollikainen said. “For freshmen, [college is] a whole new experience for them and if they don’t know what to do, then they at least know they can call 911 and get help.”

The law was expanded July 1 to give protection to victims of sexual assault and to anyone who believes they are witnessing a crime, as well as giving immunity to the person in need of medical attention, said State Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis.

Merritt, who co-authored the Lifeline Law and worked to improve it, said the additions to the law were to clear hurdles they had seen when talking to students on college campuses during the past few years.

He said the two problems they saw most often were a friend’s unwillingness to call 911 and get their friend in trouble as well as not knowing what was wrong with the person.

“That’s when we came up with the ‘in need of medical attention,’ rather than an alcohol-oriented law,” Merritt said. “We also gave immunity to the person in need of medical attention, so that got rid of those hurdles.”

He said the law could save lives as well as prevent students' mistakes from ruining the rest of their lives.

“Now that everything is in place with the law, it just needs to be known, it needs to be used,” Merritt said. “We have laws in place so that when kids and people make mistakes, there is a grayness and amnesty [to help them].”

As a part of a Student Government Association initiative, freshmen and new students now learn about the law at their orientation.

“So often, our students don’t know that regardless of their age, they can call 911 and get help for a friend, even if they’ve been drinking,” said Jennifer Jones-Hall, assistant vice president for student affairs and student life director.

Jones-Hall said she trained the orientation leaders about the law so they would be able to talk to the freshmen about it.

“Within the first six weeks of college is where we’re the most nervous with college freshmen, with all the freedom they have,” she said. “They are definitely the targeted audience [for us] because you will see that a number of alcohol issues we have and the number of drug and sexual assault we have usually are well within the first six weeks. And that’s usually our freshmen.”

Ollikainen said since Fiege’s death, she has lived her life differently, especially at parties.

“I’m much more of the mom out of all my friends now,” she said. “I’m more cautious now, and I’m never to the point where I can’t snap out of it if I need to. If I see someone just sitting there, I’ll go over to talk to them to make sure they are OK.”

Ollikainen said people shouldn’t worry about getting into trouble with the law when calling 911.

“Don’t worry about how much you’ve drank, worry about the person who needs help,” she said. “And watch out for each other, that’s what [Rachael] would have wanted.”

Ollikainen also helped with Rachael’s First Week, a program started this year at Fiege’s high school, Zionsville Community High School. Angi Fiege, Rachael’s mom, created the program, bringing some of her co-workers and Fiege's friends to talk to seniors at the Zionsville, Ind., school about the Lifeline Law.

Angi Fiege said during the program, they broke the seniors up into small groups and paired them with one of Rachael’s friends, who had just finished their freshman year of college. She said they talked about the challenges they would face in their first week of college, as well as during their first year.

“All these students are so excited,” she said. “They think they know what is going on, but they’re really so vulnerable and they don’t know how to handle it. That’s kind of what happened with Rach.”

Angi Fiege said one of their main goals with the program was to try to educate people so that what happened to her daughter didn’t happen again.

“I just don’t want anything bad to happen to anybody,” she said. “Lord knows … all of Rachael’s friends suffered so much, and nobody should have to go through this if they can prevent it.”

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