By Brian Zanzonico
It has been less than a year since volunteer firefighter Robert Getschel responded to a call of a car accident in Floral Park that killed classmate Kevin "Eggy" McArthur - and later died in his sleep. On Feb. 14, students again gathered to honored them. But this time, the circumstances were decidedly different.
In an effort to raise money for a newly established scholarship in McArthur's and Getschel's names, senior Julie Mastrella drew schoolwide attention by vowing to break the Guinness Book of Records mark for hugs in an hour on, fittingly, Valentine's Day.
Fearing early in the day that the ice storm that blanketed the area would jeopardize her attempt at the feat by keeping students from making it to school, Mastrella soon discovered that attendance wouldn't be a problem, and shattered the recognized mark of 612 hugs set in 2004 by a woman in Finland. In just 21 minutes Mastrella hugged 844 freshmen, sophomores, juniors and fellow seniors, raising $4,000 for the Bobby and Kevin Memorial Fund along the way.
"It was a big weight lifted off," Mastrella said of her record. "I wanted to do it because of all the people there. It was one of the greatest displays of emotion I have ever seen."
Because the cost of flying a representative from London-based Guinness to New York would have cut significantly into the money raised for the scholarship since September, Mastrella had to follow a litany of rules in order for the record to be authentic. She needed photo and video proof, as well as written testimony from key community witnesses. Village of Bellerose Mayor Donna Sherrer, local police commissioners and the Floral Park Fire Department - in honor of Getschel, one of their own - were all on hand to legitimize the hug record.
Mastrella, who spent her winter vacation this week in Orlando, Fla., said she will put the package together and ship it to Guinness as soon as she returns. The trip is a deserved one, said her parents, Paul and Mary Jane. In addition to being the school's Key Club president, a member of the National Honor Society, a volleyball player, a basketball coach and a volunteer at Camp ANCHOR for developmentally disabled people, their daughter, the Mastrellas said, has worked hard at drumming up support not only for her feat, but for the scholarship fund-raising campaign that began the first week of school.
When it began, students sold teddy bears, raising $3,100. While considering other ideas, Mastrella was thumbing through the Guinness Book of Records and came across the record for hugs in an hour. "I thought, Wow, I can break this," she said. "There's no question I can do it."
In the weeks before Christmas, she met with then-Interim Superintendent Warren Meierdiercks and school faculty and was given the OK to use the gymnasium - and the student body - to try and set the mark.
Mastrella said it was no coincidence that she set her sights on the records for hugs. She lives near Plainfield Avenue - the site of the crash that killed McArthur - and the town square, where students set up makeshifts memorials. For months they served as constant reminders of the double tragedy. "It was hard to watch our town fall apart," Mastrella said.
Last June 14 was supposed to be a time of celebration. McArthur, of Elmont, known to his friends as "Eggy," had completed his last day of classes at Floral Park High School and was to graduate June 24. He was coming home from a billiards hall in New Hyde Park that night with Michael Richardson, 20; Max Lesly-Auguste, 19; Nyana Adingupu, 16; and Aaron Richardson-Hourie, 16, when Auguste crashed his 1998 Toyota Avalon on Plainfield Avenue. Every person in the car except Richardson-Hourie, a sophomore at Floral Park, was killed.
Adingupu lived less than a mile from the accident site, and was finishing her sophomore year at Sewanhaka High School. Richardson was a 2003 graduate of Elmont High. Police said that Auguste, a 2005 Kellenberg Memorial High School graduate who had just completed his freshman year at Princeton, lost control of his car on a southbound bend of Plainfield and slammed into a tree not far from several homes.
The next day, one of the emergency responders to the accident, Getschel, who had had heart ailments as a child and underwent open-heart surgery in 2001, died in his sleep. Students said Getschel was the one who organized the memorials for the Plainfield Avenue crash victims.
Paul Mastrella saw the impact their deaths had on his daughter. "She experienced a death in our family a few years earlier with her grandmother, but she was 75," he said. "These were young kids who everyone knew well and liked."
Before the Valentine's Day event started, Mastrella used tape to draw lines where her fellow students would wait to receive her embrace. Over the next 20 minutes, with her parents, teachers, and local officials rooting her on, Mastrella hugged her way to the record. "One boy came up to me and said, 'I don't want to do this,'" Senior Advisor Deborah Francis said, noting that the sale of T-shirts, buttons, food and drinks raised about $1,000, bringing the total raised since September to $4,000. "Then he looked around, said, 'Forget it,' and stepped back in line."
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