College Student Suing Frat After Disgusting Hazing Rituals Almost Left Him Dead

Stories like this are particularly baffling to me because I went to a small college where frats didn’t exist and no one had to pay a monthly subscription to acquire friends. Granted, my friends who participated in Greek life say their experience was invaluable, but I’ve always rejected the notion of being pigeon-holed into one group of white males in polo shirts and Sperry’s. I’ve become quite good at hating on things I’ve never experienced. Sex is for losers.

But this story of a pledge at Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island who was put into the ICU and almost died from a deplorable hazing ritual is far from a standalone case. A BBC investigation, Frat Boys: Inside America’s Fraternities, details the story of Terrance Bennett who was almost beaten to death in an initiation ceremony involving him being blindfolded and hit with boat paddles in 2014.

Terrence is suing Tau Kappa Epsilon claiming the fraternity members blindfolded him and put him in a hostage position.

‘They’d split my skin open, the blood had pooled, became infected, my liver had started to shut down, they told me I came really close [to dying],’

‘As it progresses you start to lose pieces of clothing,’ he says of the violence he endured.

‘I got a beating so bad and there’s broken glass on the floor and sludge and rocks and dirt and you’re all scratched up and I remember I was lying on that floor and I didn’t think I was going to make it,’ he adds. (via)

Bennett also claims his fraternity members restrained and branded him, urinated on him, extinguished cigarettes on his skin, deprived him of sleep, threw eggs and rotten food at him, and forced him to exercise, binge drink, and eat raw onions and sticks of butter until he puked, reports Daily Mail.

At the end of the initiation, Terrance passed out and woke up in hospital where he almost lost his life.

[h/t BBC, Daily Mail]

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Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.