4000 Days

It’s common sense. When you send your child to college, they shouldn’t die within months of arriving. Daniel Edward Catullo III’s documentary follows three families who tragically lost their children during fraternity hazing initiation practices, as they head to Washington to pass the Stop Campus Hazing Act.

4000 Days opens with the stories of three young men whose lives were cut off way too soon. Gary DeVercelly Jr. died in 2007 at Rider University during a “Big Brother/Little Brother” initiation, when pledges were told to drink an entire bottle of vodka. He spent two days on life support before his parents made the decision to let him go. In 2014, West Virginia University student Nolan Burch was handed a bottle of whiskey during Kappa Sigma pledge night. He was found unconscious that night and died two days later. Similarly, in 2021, Adam Oakes was coerced into finishing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s for the fraternity’s “Big Brother” ritual and was found dead the next morning.

Eric and Linda Oakes speak at a podium, with a portrait of their son Adam behind them, in 4000 Days.

“The DeVercellys, the Oakeses, and TJ and Kim Burch started a grassroots campaign, and year after year they headed to Washington, D.C., to personally lobby every congressperson and senator.”

What all three incidents had in common was that hazing was an annual tradition that, over time, slowly went out of control. Now add the university administration, which permitted this behavior unfettered, and a local police department that refused to investigate each death. What was clear was that students were dying every year over these so-called pranks, and the parents of Gary, Nolan, and Adam dedicated their lives to ensuring universities are held liable for these deaths. But the only way to do this was by an act of Congress, and that’s where they went on their 4,000-day journey.

The DeVercellys, the Oakeses, and TJ and Kim Burch started a grassroots campaign, and year after year they headed to Washington, D.C., to personally lobby every congressperson and senator. Each visit made little headway, so they began holding anti-hazing seminars at universities — though those efforts met roadblocks too. But it wasn’t until 2024 that a glimmer of light shone on them, and they made headway toward getting the REACH Act out of committee. Then the universities started to bring out the big guns: first to stop the legislation, and then to introduce their own legislation to undermine our heroes.