Pubdate: Tue, 27 Mar 2007
Source: Repository, The (Canton, OH)
Copyright: 2007 The Repository
Contact: http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?external=forms/letter-editor.php
Website: http://www.cantonrep.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/954
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

MISSOURI MAN DIES AT 35 AFTER CHRONICLING HIS OWN DESCENT THROUGH 
METHAMPHETAMINE

ST. LOUIS  -- A southeast Missouri man who drew widespread attention 
for his documentary about how methamphetamine ravaged his body has 
died, but was optimistic at the end that his film would others from 
the highly addictive stimulant.

"He was extremely satisfied, wanting to do more in getting the word 
out and showing kids what meth harm does. We didn't get to that 
point," his father, Jack Bridges, said in a telephone interview hours 
after his son Shawn's death Monday at age 35. "He didn't want anyone 
to go through what he did."

Shawn Bridges died shortly after 11:30 a.m. at a hospital in Cape 
Girardeau, Mo., his father by his side.

"We'll still be trying to drive home the point that these drugs are 
poison, and that people using them are heading the same place Shawn 
has gone," Jack Bridges said.

Shawn Bridges gained publicity last year for "No More Sunsets," a 
29-minute film shot by a former southern Illinois television 
videographer at the request of Bridges, a former trucker who sought 
to immortalize his slow, agonizing decline.

By his family's account, Bridges already had died at least twice well 
before Monday, his heart so ravaged over the years by meth -- a 
concoction that can include toxic chemicals such as battery acid, 
drain cleaner and fertilizer -- that it stopped and had to be shocked 
back into beating.

The documentary shows Bridges largely bedridden, his constant 
companions a catheter and feeding tube he needed because of the poor 
decisions he admitted making.

"I'd say he's got a 34-year-old body on the outside with 70- to 
80-year-old man on the inside," his father told the AP in May of last year.

Roughly 28,000 people sought treatment for meth addiction across the 
country in 1993, accounting for nearly 2 percent of admissions for 
drug-abuse care, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental 
Health Services Administration.

But just a decade later, the meth-related admissions numbered nearly 
136,000 -- more than 7 percent of the national total for drug-abuse treatment.

Family members have said Shawn Bridges had been haunted by the dreary 
day in 1976 when his younger brother Jason, barely a year old, died 
in a car wreck. Shawn was just 4 and nowhere near the accident but 
inexplicably blamed himself, wanting to trade places with his dead 
sibling, his father has said.

Jack Bridges says Shawn's lenient upbringing set him on the road to 
becoming "a little monster. By 16, the kid was a high school dropout 
and partier." Twice, he tried to kill himself, family members have said.

Chip Rossetti, who filmed the documentary, said 500 to 600 copies 
have been sold, with copies sent everywhere from Australia and 
Canada. Bridges also was profiled on German public television.

Rossetti said Monday he plans a sequel, chronicling Bridge's final 
year and testimonials by people touched by his awareness push.

"I don't think people will forget what got him to this point," said 
Rossetti, now a sales manager for an indoor football team in 
Evansville, Ind. "But what he did with his condition is really the 
amazing thing."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman