By Sarah Metcalf

Jason Stackiewicz doesn’t seem too preoccupied with the fact that he almost lost his life only two months ago. Instead, he chooses to focus on mastering the art of guitar.

“I play guitar, but I’m learning,” Stackiewicz said with a laugh and a slight slur, which reveals the extent of the injuries he sustained. “I’m still working on that, but we’re getting there.”

Stackiewicz said he doesn’t remember Stanley Filoma’s black sport utility vehicle striking him and several other people when he was “hanging outside with friends” on the night of the Feb. 1 Super Bowl riots, leaving him in a coma — and he isn’t angry, either.

“I don’t really blame anybody right now,” the 21-year-old criminal justice major said. “I don’t actually blame the guy that did it. He’s going to have to deal with [the fact that he] hurt a lot of people, and his family is hurting too. I’m just trying to get back to normal.”

“Getting back to normal” means physical, occupational and speech therapy three times a week, along with frequent trips to the doctor for his broken leg, which may require surgery, said Diana Stackiewicz, Jason’s mother.

“It’s a constant thing for the next year,” she said. “He may need an operation on his leg, and we go to the dentist to check his mouth … it’s a lot of reminders of what happened.”

After the accident, Stackiewicz was in a coma, and doctors did not know if he was going to make it through the night. However, in just two months, he has managed to go from requiring a wheelchair, to walking with a cane, to walking on his own, only using the cane occasionally for support.

Stackiewicz, however, is more upset about the fact he can’t drive his manual car.

“I’m just pretty much stuck in the house, except to go to the doctor’s all the time,” he said. “I can’t drive because my vision’s not too good, so I stay at home a lot.”

Keeping her son busy while he recovers at home in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. is a challenge in itself, Mrs. Stackiewicz said.

“He’s been home for a week now — gotta keep him entertained,” she said with a laugh.

Both Stackiewicz and his mother said that during his rehabilitation process, North-eastern “couldn’t do enough” for them, providing a place for Stackiewicz’s parents to stay while he was in the hospital, and offering to help Stackiewicz catch up in his classes.

“I would like to say thank you to the dean of criminal justice (Jack Greene) and to the president (Richard Freeland) because they called my parents to see how everything was going, they got my parents a place to stay and they’re going to help me get back into my classes,” he said.

When the fall semester rolls around, Stackiewicz will be back at Northeastern, living in West Campus and doing just what he used to do before the accident.

“In school on the weekend I did my homework or whatever, I had and hung out with my roommates or any of my friends,” he said. “I talk to all my friends — I think things are pretty much going to get back to normal.”

The events that took place after the Super Bowl have garnered national media attention, which might make some students apprehensive about returning to the same campus where the accident took place. Stackiewicz, however, takes it all in stride. He even plans on taking a course this summer at a local college to begin to make up what he has missed.

“I’m not worried about it, I don’t mind,” he said. “I just tell everybody pretty much the same things [about the accident]. I haven’t been [at Northeastern] for a while; I’ll probably start off slow to get back into my classes, and anything I missed I gotta catch up on.”

Diana Stackiewicz said she doesn’t blame anyone either, but she does think the police could have done more to prevent the tragedies that occurred.

“First of all, I don’t understand how [the riots] got so out of hand — it should have been a celebration, not destruction,” she said. “I don’t blame anybody, but I think there should have been more done by police. This was not the first time riots happened, and I just think police should have been better prepared.”

She also said she has plans to become an advocate against drunk driving, and lobby for an automatic prison sentence accompanying a DUI.

Diana Stackiewicz said her son’s rapid recovery and homecoming have made her acutely aware of her family’s blessings and the brevity of life.

“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel for us,” she said. “We have a miracle that God saved Jason, and you know, you’ve just got to live day to day, thank God for the days you have and live life to the fullest.”