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Teen's vitality recalled

Published in the Asbury Park Press 4/22/02
By ALISON WALDMAN
FREEHOLD BUREAU

MIDDLETOWN -- Like many other 17-year-olds, Lincroft resident Michael Salvatore Harrigan was excited when he received his driver's license following his birthday in December.

"He wanted to buy a car," said his stepfather, Lou Nardella, adding that the teen took on two part-time jobs to earn money to buy his first vehicle.

On his first night of work on Friday as a delivery boy for Luigi's Famous Pizza in Lincroft, Harrigan was killed on Swimming River Road a few minutes after the start of a powerful thunderstorm.

At 6:50 p.m., Harrigan's car, a Mercedes-Benz owned by his family, slid off the road and the driver's side door slammed into a tree, officials said.

Harrigan was taken to the Jersey Shore Medical Center, Neptune, with internal injuries and died later that evening. Police are still investigating the accident.

Yesterday, friends and family of the teen-ager tried to cope with the sudden loss.

"Mike was a great kid, he was a super-sweet guy," Nardella said. "He didn't have a mean bone in his body."

A student at the New School High School in Tinton Falls, Harrigan was preparing to graduate in the spring, said Rebekah Chilvers, one of two directors at the small private high school of 19 students.

"That is one of the hardest things, we lost 1/19 of our school," Chilvers said. "It (the student body) is a family, so they are dealing with it almost as if it is the loss of a sibling."

Chilvers, along with the other school director, Dale Thompson, went to the emergency room that night with two other students, she said. Thompson was also Harrigan's teacher.

On Saturday, Harrigan's classmates gathered to talk about the tragedy and remember the fun-loving teen-ager, Chilvers said.

"Mike was their vitality. He was their energy," she said of the relationship between Harrigan and his classmates.

Now students are having a difficult time grasping the reality of the accident and their loss.

"Seventeen-year-olds aren't supposed to die, it just doesn't make sense," Thompson said, explaining the sentiment expressed by some students.

Aside from working part time at Red Bank Pizza on North Bridge Street in Red Bank and taking on a second job at Luigi's, Harrigan also took classes at Brookdale Community College, Nardella said.

"He worked really hard," Thompson said. "He was one of those kids who was very determined."

Thompson said Harrigan planned to continue his education at Brooklyn College in New York.

The school will operate on a half-day schedule today, tomorrow and Wednesday to allow students to attend services for their classmate, Chilvers said.

Thompson said the school is also creating a database of grief counselors and psychologists for students and parents to contact if they need assistance.

Almost immediately, students also requested some kind of memorial service for Harrigan involving all grade levels at the school and during graduation, Chilvers said.

The school also plans to create some kind of permanent memorial for Harrigan in the garden of the elementary school, located in Holmdel.

Harrigan is survived by his mother and stepfather, Joselle and Lou Nardella of Lincroft, his father, Craig Harrigan, of Staten Island, and two siblings, Marc Harrigan of Staten Island and Bianca Nardella of Lincroft.

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