NEW ORLEANS -- Make one wrong decision, and in a flash, nothing will ever be the same.
That is the message a local college student passed on to pre-teens in junior high, in hopes of protecting them from a life dependent on others, like his.
And there is a reason why his message is so powerful.
D.J. Dietze was only 12 years old, a seventh grader, when curiosity changed his life forever. "I'll never forget the day. It was October 17, 2001," remembers Dietze.
Playing at his grandparents' home, he found a revolver. He thought he had taken all of the bullets out. He had not. The one left behind ripped a hole in his skull and damaged the part of the brain that tells the body how to walk and move.
"If I can save one person from not suffering like I've had to over the past years, then that's a big contribution. I feel like I was kept on this earth for a reason and given a second chance and I want to do everything I can with that opportunity," said Dietze.
Now a junior at Tulane, D.J. is working with a non-profit group called Liberation Through Education. On this day students at the Lafayette Charter School on Carrollton Avenue get to see the model of his damaged skull. They can see the scar left behind from nearly a dozen operations, some done while D.J. was in a coma for more than three weeks.
And even though the children are only in sixth and seventh grades, the message is especially important to them. They live in a day when security guards have to stand at every entrance of their school, and almost every student raised his or her hand when asked if they had seen a gun in real life.
And they have seen the consequences of fooling with guns.
A seventh grader named Kenneth said he's known people who have been shot before. He said he learned a lot from D.J.'s talk.
"They got all sorts of consequences that could happen," he said.
"I learned not to play with a gun and know that it is very dangerous. You can die from it," added seventh grader Brianne.
"They are not safe and if you see somebody with a gun, report it," said Brittnay, who is also a seventh grader.
In his short life, D.J. has seen friends die from addiction and guns. He's seen them go to jail. His grandfather died from smoking cigarettes. He's seen others die from a car wreck after smoking pot, and that too was part of his message.
"Never take drugs because you could have big consequences. You could die at a young age, and a lot of children do take drugs," said seventh grader Devon.
After he graduates from Tulane University, it's on to law school, possibly specializing in disability law, and then D.J. wants to live in DC.
"I want to run for president eventually, but I got to wait until I'm 35, so I'll do something local first," he said.
If you'd like D.J. to give a talk at your school or club, call 504-885-6751.
