"He wanted to buy a car," said his stepfather,
Lou Nardella, adding that the teen took on two
part-time jobs to earn money to buy his first
vehicle.
On his first night of work on Friday as a
delivery boy for Luigi's Famous Pizza in Lincroft,
Harrigan was killed on Swimming River Road a few
minutes after the start of a powerful
thunderstorm.
At 6:50 p.m., Harrigan's car, a Mercedes-Benz
owned by his family, slid off the road and the
driver's side door slammed into a tree, officials
said.
Harrigan was taken to the Jersey Shore Medical
Center, Neptune, with internal injuries and died
later that evening. Police are still investigating
the accident.
Yesterday, friends and family of the teen-ager
tried to cope with the sudden loss.
"Mike was a great kid, he was a super-sweet
guy," Nardella said. "He didn't have a mean bone
in his body."
A student at the New School High School in
Tinton Falls, Harrigan was preparing to graduate
in the spring, said Rebekah Chilvers, one of two
directors at the small private high school of 19
students.
"That is one of the hardest things, we lost
1/19 of our school," Chilvers said. "It (the
student body) is a family, so they are dealing
with it almost as if it is the loss of a sibling."
Chilvers, along with the other school director,
Dale Thompson, went to the emergency room that
night with two other students, she said. Thompson
was also Harrigan's teacher.
On Saturday, Harrigan's classmates gathered to
talk about the tragedy and remember the fun-loving
teen-ager, Chilvers said.
"Mike was their vitality. He was their energy,"
she said of the relationship between Harrigan and
his classmates.
Now students are having a difficult time
grasping the reality of the accident and their
loss.
"Seventeen-year-olds aren't supposed to die, it
just doesn't make sense," Thompson said,
explaining the sentiment expressed by some
students.
Aside from working part time at Red Bank Pizza
on North Bridge Street in Red Bank and taking on a
second job at Luigi's, Harrigan also took classes
at Brookdale Community College, Nardella said.
"He worked really hard," Thompson said. "He was
one of those kids who was very determined."
Thompson said Harrigan planned to continue his
education at Brooklyn College in New York.
The school will operate on a half-day schedule
today, tomorrow and Wednesday to allow students to
attend services for their classmate, Chilvers
said.
Thompson said the school is also creating a
database of grief counselors and psychologists for
students and parents to contact if they need
assistance.
Almost immediately, students also requested
some kind of memorial service for Harrigan
involving all grade levels at the school and
during graduation, Chilvers said.
The school also plans to create some kind of
permanent memorial for Harrigan in the garden of
the elementary school, located in Holmdel.
Harrigan is survived by his mother and
stepfather, Joselle and Lou Nardella of Lincroft,
his father, Craig Harrigan, of Staten Island, and
two siblings, Marc Harrigan of Staten Island and
Bianca Nardella of Lincroft.
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