Family seeks answers after witnesses say high school student died from ‘drinking too much’ on graduation trip

COLUMBIA, Miss. (WDAM/Gray News) - A family in Mississippi is seeking answers after a 19-year-old died on a trip to Florida days after graduating from high school.

On May 15, Shannon Tanner graduated from Columbia Academy. His family says he was known to light up a room and talk to anyone who would listen.

His mother, Pamela Thompson, says the day after graduation, he drove to Bay County, Florida, to celebrate with friends.

Thompson told WDAM that adults were chaperoning the trip.

Authorities were called on May 17 to the home where Tanner was staying. Witnesses told investigators Tanner was “drinking too much.”

“He sent me pictures at 7:30 Sunday night, and I believe the EMT call was recorded around 9:40 that night, and we just don’t understand, you know, how that happened so quickly,” Thompson said.

On May 20, Tanner’s family decided to take him off life support at a hospital in Florida.

“Some people lose loved ones in accidents, and they know what happened,” Thompson said. “I wake up every morning. I’m like, ‘This is real.’”

His family says they still don’t know what happened before Tanner was taken to a hospital or how he got access to alcohol.

“The hospital and the police had to be the ones to contact us,” his sister said. “How do you let someone’s kid go in an ambulance and not do anything?”

While they wait for answers, Tanner’s family holds him close in other ways: bracelets, a teddy bear with a voicemail he left for his mother, and fond memories.

“My favorite story is when he helped the pastor baptize me,” Pamela said.

“He was definitely not an ordinary kid,” Tanner’s sister, Anna Broom, said. “Anyone that came across him, they could tell he was full of life.”

Thompson says an anonymous donor is also helping to fund an alcohol education program in Tanner’s name at Columbia Academy.

His family is also working to start a nonprofit called Families Against Underage Drinking.