Waylon Jennings American musician
Waylon Jennings was a guitarist for
Buddy Holly's band and initially had a seat on the ill-fated aircraft on February 3, 1959, which would later come to be known as "
the day the music died". Jennings, however, gave up his seat to the sick Jiles Perry Richardson Jr., aka
the Big Bopper, only to later learn of the plane's crash. When Holly learned that Jennings was not going to fly, he said, "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Jennings responded, "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes." This exchange of words, though made in jest at the time, haunted Jennings for the rest of his life.
Stoneman Douglas High School shooting On February 14, 2018,
Nikolas Cruz went into
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in
Parkland, Florida, and shot randomly at students and staff, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. Sydney Aiello, whose close friend was killed, struggled with survivor guilt, and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. On March 17, 2019, Aiello died by suicide at the age of 19. Less than a week later, on March 23,
Coral Springs police announced that Calvin Desir, a juvenile male student from Stoneman Douglas, had been found dead as a result of an apparent suicide.
Stephen Whittle Stephen Whittle was a
Liverpool F.C. fan who had bought a ticket for the
FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and
Nottingham Forest F.C. on 15 April 1989, but sold his ticket to a friend due to work obligations that had prevented him from attending the match. Whittle's friend (whom he and his family have chosen to leave unidentified) was
one of the 97 victims of the
crowd crush at that game. After the event, Whittle became withdrawn from friends and family, stated he felt unable to go to football matches due to his guilt and related feeling of responsibility for his friend's death. He committed suicide on 26 February 2011, almost 22 years after the ill-fated match.
The War-Related Poetry of Charles Causley The British poet, broadcaster and teacher
Charles Causley (1917–2003) served at sea and on land in the Royal Navy for most of the Second World War. Afterwards, he trained and worked as a teacher in
Launceston, Cornwall, and (in his spare time and after retiring) wrote hundreds of poems for adults and children, between 1951 and 2000. One strong theme running through his work is his own sense of survivor guilt – a feeling in part triggered by the death of a friend who left Launceston for the war on the same train in 1940, but was later lost in action in the North Sea. For instance, Causley tells of how, when walking through the town centre years later, he would cross the road in order to avoid coming face-to-face with that friend's mother.
Columbine High School massacre Several of the students and staff who survived the
Columbine High School massacre in April 1999 have experienced survivor guilt, including students
Austin Eubanks,
Anne Marie Hochhalter, Brooks Brown, and Richard Castaldo, among others. Principal Frank DeAngelis wrote in his 2019 memoir
They Call Me Mr. De about the struggles with survivor guilt and PTSD, which caused him to suffer from heart disease and other mental health problems. On May 6, 2000, 17-year-old student and survivor Greg Barnes committed
suicide by hanging. He had seen teacher Dave Sanders when Sanders was shot by the gunmen. == See also ==