Jonathan Briese would have turned 22 this Aug. 6, a day his parents marked by hiking up a mountain in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park. "You get to the top and there's a 360-degree view," says his father, Garry Briese, 53, referring to a place called Marys Rock. "Jonathan loved that spot." His mother, Roni, 52, found this second birthday without her younger son as wrenching as the first. "A day doesn't go by that I don't think about him," she says. "They say with time the pain gets easier. I'm not quite sure that it does."

The Brieses are still struggling to make sense of what happened on Feb. 19, 2000, the day Jonathan underwent a relatively routine laser treatment to remove hair from his back—and wound up dead. A promising Coast Guard cadet who was always sensitive about his thick back hair—in high school classmates "used to call him Sasquatch," remembers Garry—Briese stopped breathing after taking small doses of a relaxant and a pain reliever. Now his parents are suing Plastic Surgery Associates of McLean, Va., for wrongful death in a hotly disputed case heading to trial early next year. "This was not a senior citizen having an invasive procedure," says the Brieses' attorney Ronald Karp. "This was a perfectly healthy 20-year-old kid."

In a strange twist the doctor who performed the procedure, James Donohue, 45, was found dead this June 9, only weeks after checking out of a drug-rehab facility. An autopsy showed no drugs in his system and indicated he died of heart failure; family members said he had a congenital heart defect. Still, the Brieses are not convinced his history of drug abuse isn't relevant to their son's death.

Ironically Jonathan Briese was not the type to take unnecessary risks. He was well-versed in safety measures by his father, author of a widely read manual on emergency procedures, and his mother, controller of the National Association for Search and Rescue. Raised in Orlando along with brother Oren (now 24 and a Colorado firefighter), Briese grew up loving the water; he insisted on an aquatic-themed bar mitzvah and was a certified scuba diver at age 14. In 1997 he realized a childhood dream by enrolling in the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. By his third year he was asked to head a commission to boost student morale. "He was just so open," says friend Katherine Chen, 22, an Air Force lieutenant. "That was unusual for a military guy."

During his winter break in 1999, the strapping 5'11" Briese finally decided to do something about his bothersome back hair. After reading an ad for Plastic Surgery Associates and thoroughly investigating the laser procedure, he signed up for the $1,000, three-session treatment. He returned from his first session, on Dec. 22, "just ecstatic," says Garry. "His back was clear."

His second session two months later, however, was a disaster. After Donohue applied a skin-numbing cream to Jonathan's back and administered the medication, Briese vomited and slipped into unconsciousness. "I put him on his side," Donohue told PEOPLE earlier this year. "I had been clearing his airway. I called 911." When paramedics arrived minutes later, Briese "was still breathing," said Donohue, though an EMS report notes Briese had no pulse. Paramedics also reported Donohue did not perform CPR or other life-saving measures; Donohue insisted that he did. "The emergency equipment was out, and it was used," says Csaba Magassy, the doctor who ran the clinic and hired Donohue, and is now a target of the lawsuit.

Briese never regained consciousness. He was pronounced dead of anaphylactic shock, a violent allergic reaction. Donohue went on to perform laser hair removal treatments on 40 other patients before leaving the clinic last September. In the months before he died, he worked as a home builder in Oklahoma City. Donohue's death has not affected the lawsuit against Magassy and the clinic; Jonathan's family is investigating whether the medications could have played a role in his death, while the defendants may claim it was something he ate. The Brieses are pursuing the lawsuit, says his mother, "to carry on Jonathan's legacy of helping people."

On the day the Brieses climbed Marys Rock, they also visited Jonathan's grave at Arlington National Cemetery, which during his funeral was crowded with some 1,200 mourners. This time the couple stood alone before their son's stark white tombstone, etched with his name and the phrase "Soaring with the Eagles." "He was going to be a leader," says his father. "I really think he had the right stuff."

Alex Tresniowski
Susan Gray Gose in Burke, Va.