Jamie Coleman

If you haven't heard, Jamie Coleman died last week. I hadn't seen her since high school, and it's weird for me to realize I had no idea what she had been doing for the last six years. I think it's safe to say that all of us who knew her or hung out with her made some really mean jokes from time to time behind her back, even sometimes directly to her. You could chalk it up to guys being guys, going for the shock value of saying something really mean to get a rise.

Yeah, it's convenient to say that what we said was wrong now that she's gone, but as I think about her for the first time in years, I realize she deserved better. She was actually one of the few girls who really got the BC sense of humor. She didn't take herself too seriously and was always excited about hanging out with us. I took her for granted back then; she really was one of the most fun girls to hang out with.

Here is the article about her death from the AJC:

Freak accident kills woman
Door pins her against the car

By Ken Sugiura
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/27/07

Thousands of metro Atlantans return home every day by waving or placing a plastic card against an electronic reader to open a gate to their apartment complex.

Early Thursday morning, that simple act led to the death of a Gwinnett County woman, police said.

According to a police report, Jamie Melissa Coleman, 24, pulled up to the gated Holland Park apartment complex in the Lawrenceville area around 2 a.m. in her 2003 Volkswagen Passat. Apparently unable to reach the card reader, she opened her door and leaned out.

In the process, the car rolled forward, bumping against a concrete post protecting the brick-encased card reader housing. The post pushed the car door back, pinning Coleman against the car. The report said she died of asphyxiation. Police say alcohol might have been a contributing factor.

Coleman grew up in Savannah, graduated from Georgia Southern University with a business degree and was a manager at a Mellow Mushroom restaurant, said her father, David Coleman, of Savannah. He said his daughter always smiled and was a lover of animals. Coleman owned a mixed-breed dog, Layla, that she rescued from a pound, and three parrots. David Coleman said his daughter's death "tears a piece of you out."

The strange circumstances of her death, he said, was "just hard to believe. Not that it makes it any easier, but that particular way, it's tough."

Gwinnett Police spokesman Darren Moloney and Bob Dallas, director of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety, said they had never heard of such a fatality.

"It was pretty horrible," Moloney said. "What can you say? It was an accident."

Another Holland Park resident pulled in after Coleman and found her slumped toward the ground. Phil Gelman, 20, at first thought she was reaching for her card on the ground, but after about two minutes, he got out of his car and found her not moving or breathing. Gelman said he called 911, put the car in reverse and pulled Coleman out of the car to perform CPR when police arrived. Coleman was declared dead at the scene.

"It's just crazy to die like that," Gelman said.

Two Holland Park residents said the posts surrounding the card readers can make it difficult to pull up close enough to reach them without getting out of the car or leaning far out of the window.