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Emerson student hits head on bricks, cement in Allston fight; family says he'll never regain consciousness

Update: His family reports he died around 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

The Globe reports Daniel Hollis got into a fight with some other college-age men around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, during which his family says he fell and hit his head on bricks and cement.

In an online journal, his family writes he suffered "extensive and unrepairable damage to large sections of his brain" that mean he will not regain consciousness and may not even live long.

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Comments

Not that it matters, but I have to wonder (as a mom of young men) if it was an actual "fight" or if he and his friends were just yelling and pushing and then people panicked when he fell?

Still not the sort of thing a parent would ever expect to happen from something that would seem so trivial. I know parents who have lost children this age to misadventure/accidents and I feel very sad for this guy's family.

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What good does this rumor mongering do? You have no idea what happened. You weren’t there. The young man is going to die. I hope we can all restrain the urge to make things harder on a friend or family member who may be visiting this page.

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I raised two young men and I have seen how kids interact. Sometimes it looks like a fight to people who don't know them when they start to wrestle and scuffle, but they are really only just joking around.

This could be important because an accident is a lot different from an intentional act to harm. If those involved had no bad intent, they may not come forward if they believe they will be charged with manslaughter.

Why did you react? What good does your reaction do?

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This could be important because an accident is a lot different from an intentional act to harm.

And if you were the DA, or a family member, or a legal representative of same, you'd have some standing and your speculation would be appropriate. If this were some kind of blinding new insight that no one has ever thought of, it would be worth sharing.

In this context, it isn't.

One of the internet's great lessons: we're not always required to share our thoughts about a thing.

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What do you expect?

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What do you expect?

Nothing in particular. But people always have the ability to reflect and behave appropriately.

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So heartbreaking. We had a traumatic brain injury in the family a few years ago. It changes absolutely everything. I feel horrible for all involved especially his family.

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One friend's daughter stumbled over a curb and hit her head on a stone bench after a night out with friends. She was sober, but just took that one bad fall into a worst case situation and died. Her mother is still completely devastated three years later.

Most people with kids this age know someone that has had a similar sort of event. Being a young adult is sadly quite hazardous.

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It is so heart wrenching - I'm not sure if we're just hearing about it more or if it's happening more. Growing up I don't remember this type of injury being common

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It happened when you were growing up as well....you just didn't have a 24 hour news cycle and social media.

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Young men fight at colleges and bars around here all the time. It's very common.

As a mother of young men I would share this story with them to show how stupid fighting is.

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kids and booze usually means someone is going to square off at some point and this is the worst possible scenario of that happening. this poor kid and his family must be devastated. prayers.

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kids and booze usually means someone is going to square off at some point

Not at all true.

Plenty of people go their entire young adulthood getting drunk regularly -- blackout drunk, even -- and never swing a fist.

Alcohol may make people who are prone to violent thuggery, less able to control themselves, but it doesn't turn ordinary people violent.

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He didnt say kids+booze means every kid squares off. He said it means somebody likely will.

I didnt personally need to throw anything while out drinking, but I still saw fights in Boston every weekend

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excessive amounts of alcohol can and often enough will bring out a part of one's personality that's already there, but which the person(s) in question manages to keep totally under wraps when sober. For example, if a person who is supposedly not prone to violence and/or thuggery when sober, but gets into physical fights after having imbibed excessive amounts of alcohol, it means that the excessive drinking of alcohol has brought out what was already there to begin with.

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His friends should have reported the attack to the police. You and I both know someone has video evidence.

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There’s plenty of cameras over there. Those college babies kids will start talking once videos are released. Right around nightlife spots and businesses. Dont know why anyone wants to committ crime , when there are cameras watching every inch

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If you both know, why aren't you contacting the police with that information ?

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Tragic. I can't imagine anything that these young men were fighting about was worth killing someone over.

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I feel so sad over this. Thinking back to my college days and just thereafter, this could have easily been me many times over, or other friends or even people we fought with. Young men with passion and drive in their hearts and liquor in their belly (or not) will fight. It happens. It will continue to happen, the world turns. I would think not even one's adversaries would wish something like this on them.
I feel for the family, I hope they see these comments. Lets all try to practice peace and understanding as best we can.

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Young men with passion and drive in their hearts and liquor in their belly (or not) will fight.

You call it "passion and drive?"

Seriously?

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I think we all could agree we’d prefer living in a world without fighting. The truth is we don’t, and likely never will.

This is unbelievably tragic and I have no clue what transpired. This is me responding to the comment section, not the event. Where are you people calling a fight “sociopathic behavior” from? I can imagine anybody growing up around here and having never been in a fight.

I grew up in a decent neighborhood where boys (and often girls) fought during and after school regularly. Conflicts largely ended right there. We didn’t have a brutal bullying culture where victims were tortured for years on end. You caught, were suspended 3 days, and everybody moved on.

I can’t think of one person from my childhood committing suicide or planning to shoot up a school. Ask yourself......are we moving in the right direction?

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I grew up in a decent neighborhood where boys (and often girls) fought during and after school regularly.

So did I.

And by the time we were in 10th grade or so, only the truly damaged losers were still doing it. Anyone still swinging fists once they're in college needs to be in a cage, not walking around among the rest of us.

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Does anyone here even know what happened? Awful lot of answers to unasked questions without any knowledge of the incident.

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This is absolutely devastating. In the past few years similar incidents have occurred; 1 in Dorchester and one in Quincy.

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Guy breaking up a fight got knocked down, hit his head and that's it. Back 10-15 years I think...

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Daniel was known for his athletic gifts, his laughter, his goofy sense of humor and his big smile that could light up a room. His friends describe him as “super upbeat, energetic and fun to be around.” He loved to listen to music including Travis Scott, cheer for the Bruins and go to Red Sox games with his friends. He was an outstanding member of his high school lacrosse team at Hopedale High and played the same for Emerson. He twice made national records for the most saves in a single season by a lacrosse player when he played in high school. (https://www.laxrecords.com/2014/09/03/season-records-saves/). As an 8th grader, he once said to his Hopedale lacrosse coach 'coach I just love to smile' "He couldn't not smile, he had problems not skipping when he walked, he was pure sunlight." He also enjoyed ice hockey and was an assistant captain for the Hopedale co-op hockey team. He was studying Marketing Communication at Emerson. Daniel has a mother, father, sister, many cousins, grandmother, uncles, and aunts who all will need love and support to get though this awful time.

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.... looking like they may be dead or dying. Yet other people are just walking around them, ignoring them. Why is is this hockey playing white college kid getting so much attention?

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Probably because he is near death.

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does the color of his skin really matter lee? i would step over you and i dont know your race, i just know you're an asshole.

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I had a friend when I was in high school who had grown up without a father, because when he was a toddler, dad got in an argument in a bar. Words turned into shoving turned into punches, and the other guy hit his head on the bar and died. Dad spent his son's entire childhood in prison.

I also had a friend at work who tripped on a sidewalk in the Fenway about three years ago. He hit his head on the curb and got a traumatic brain injury. He tried to come back to work, but he couldn't. He went into a slow decline and died a few months ago.

I swear, the only way humans can leave the house and engage in life is to never, ever consider how fragile our spines and brains are.

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Sorry about the loss of your friend, and about the loss of your other friends' father, both needlessly. It must've been very painful for your friend to grow up without a father, especially without having had a chance to really know him at all, and painful for you to lose a friend due to traumatic brain injury.

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Marine Corps identifies reservist allegedly connected to death of Emerson college student.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2019/11/08/marin...

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