18 year-old Christina Tournant of Seminole died Thursday evening in Tampa, Florida
Posted: March 7, 2015 – 9:15AM
Christina Tournant graduated from Osceola High School (OHS) in Seminole, FL as the Valedictorian. She was attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge/Boston with a major in Biomedical Engineering.
According to a campus wide email on Friday, MIT’s president L. Rafael Reif wrote that Tournant was on voluntary medical leave from MIT. The death is under investigation but apparently a suicide based upon statements made by the housemaster of the dorm at MIT in which she resided. Information obtained by IONTB validates this cause of death which occurred at Tampa International Airport. Tournant reportedly jumped off the roof of the parking garage on airport property.
Tournant was active on the Women’s Swimming & Diving Team at MIT, an activity she excelled in at Osceola High School. Her accomplishments at OHS were highlighted on the MIT website;
Lettered four times
Scholar Athlete Award
Top Female Sprinter Award
School record holder in 100m, 100 fly (58.18), 200m medley relay and 400m freestyle relay
Career-best in 200 fly: 2:07.91
Qualified for state championships
Founder of Skim/Surf/Wake Club
Special Kids Cheer and Dance volunteer
Many fellow friends and classmate took to social networking to express their sadness surrounding the tragedy.
This school year at Osceola High School has been a tough one for students as this was not its first tragedy. Devin Chester, a Junior at Osceola High School, was killed following a crash at Sunshine Motocross in Clearwater in October, 2014, just 5 months ago. In the summer of 2012, 15 year-old Osceola student Deviny Boese died in a Redington Shores boating incident.
A link to that story can be found HERE
According to the Boston Globe, Tournant’s death is the eighth among the MIT university community over the past year.
2-1-1 Tampa Bay Cares partners with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, answering suicide calls primarily for Pinellas County. 2-1-1 TBC is accredited by the American Association of Suicidology for crisis intervention services and utilizes and evidence based training called the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) model for suicide/crisis intervention.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts or has become withdrawn, please call 2-1-1 and review information on assistance available here in Pinellas County at http://211connects.org/needs-library/suicide-prevention