Death calls attention to college party culture
By Audrey Davis, News Editor
Tim Fresch, a junior at Miami University, was known for his larger than life personality. His friends described him as being the life of the party. He was never a complainer. He was the one who tried to cheer everyone up and tell them that things weren't actually that bad. He brightened everyone's mood. That's why so many people were shocked to hear he had passed out on the afternoon of April 9 and died four days later after being taken off life support at Bethesda North Hospital in Cincinnati.
Vince DiMichele attended The Hotchkiss School, a boarding school in Connecticut, with Fresch and the two became close friends, despite the fact that DiMichele was a year older.
"With Tim, it was just late nights hanging out in the dorm and playing Xbox and almost getting in trouble for staying up too late and things like that are what really stand out," said DiMichele. "Having him around was enough."
DiMechele said that Fresch was someone who naturally loved everyone. He never understood why people couldn't get along.
One of Fresch's friends, Joe Ostrander, a junior at Miami, remembers meeting Fresch through mutual friends at Pachinko Bar and Grill.
"He was the funniest and nicest dude you'll ever meet," said Ostrander. "He was like 'Wazzup dude! My name's Timmy!' That's literally the first thing he ever said to me. He did not stop smiling the entire night."
After that first night, they became instant friends.
One weekend, two of Ostrander's friends came to visit Miami. Ostrander said Timmy made it his personal mission to get the two visitors completely hammered.
"He was like, 'Dude, I'm gonna make your friends black the fuck out!'" Ostrander said. "I was like, 'Oh, all right. Let's do it!'"
Timmy succeeded in his mission and got one of Ostrander's friends to blackout. Ostrander said his friend just fell over on the floor, passed out and started snoring. Timmy decided to get an airhorn, the kind that people commonly use at athletic events, and started blaring it into the guy's ear. He didn't budge and continued snoring. Timmy and the rest of the guys there thought it was the funniest thing ever.
"I work at Pachinkos, and I created two drinks just for Timmy," said Ostrander. "I had to make the most disgusting, boozy concoctions just because he wanted me to make him something stupid."
Fresch walked into Ostrander's first shift at the bar and waited for him to make him that 'something stupid.' Ostrander started Fresch's drink with a liquid cocaine shot which is Goldschlager, Jägermeister, and Bacardi 151.
"I basically made a drink with a shot and a half of liquid cocaine, gin, vodka and tequila," said Ostrander. "It pretty much fucks you up, and then I top that off with Red Bull and Coke. It's absolutely disgusting, but he loved it."
Ostrander calls that concoction "The Fresch" and another "Timmy of the Beach," which Ostrander said is much better tasting.
"He loved to have a good time, but he had his demons. I'll put it that way," Ostrander said. "The problem is, a lot of times the people who seem the happiest often have a lot of internal struggles. Look at Robin Williams. He was one of the happiest people in Hollywood, one of the most famously funny people, but he had a lot of demons like my buddy."
Ostrander said Timmy seemed to be dealing with those demons better than before. He took a little time off to get better and seemed happy to be back. He loved being at Miami with all of his friends.
"It was just a little too much of everything. A little too much can be a bad thing," said Ostrander. "He just went a little too far, but we need to remember him as the great person that he was."
DiMichele never saw Fresch's death coming, but he acknowledged that it wasn't out of the realm of possibility either.
"He was in a friend group of young, smart kids who lived together, and it was all over consumption and pushing your limits," DiMichele said about their time at boarding school. "I suppose that most of us grew out of that, but he did not."
DiMichele said it's a habit that becomes routine. He got down a path that he couldn't reverse.
"There's just so much stigma around a lifestyle like that, and kids won't reach out because they think that there isn't new information and new help out there, but there is," said DiMichele. "Mental health is gaining a lot of traction now. We really just need to get the information to those people. When you really do finally know the facts, it becomes that much easier."
In a statement to the Miami community on the myMiami homepage After Fresch's death last week, Dean of Students Mike Curme listed several resources for students seeking support on Miami's campus, including Student Counseling Services and the Health Services Center.
"Tim's loss represents a loss to our entire Miami University community," Curme wrote. "Many on campus may need support during this difficult time."
There has already been an outpouring of people sharing stories of Timmy across social media, remembering the best times of his life.
Ostrander and some of Fresch's close friends plan to get a mini keg of Heineken, his favorite beer, and each write something on the outside as a memorial for him.
"Because what other way would he have wanted it?" Ostrander added.
In a Facebook post on April 15th, Ostrander wrote, "I think we should all know we were so lucky to have known him. We were lucky because of all the times and places we could have been born and lived, we were born at the right time and place to have known Tim Fresch."