Given a shovel and sufficient time, his friends and family agree that Andrew Sutter possessed the will necessary to move mountains.
Andrew was in his first year of medical school at Texas A&M, having finished his undergraduate in biomedical engineering only last year, and was well on his way to his dream of becoming a doctor. Whether he was on the trail or in the classroom, Andrew’s “never-give-up” attitude was clear to everyone around him.
Shiva Reddy, a first-year medical student and friend of Andrew, said Andrew was never at a loss for something to do.
“Whenever he is working he is really really working and getting into the material,” Reddy said. “He wanted to understand things so bad, and he wanted to understand them at a deep level, but whenever that turned off he would just click into this sense of adventure and just go do things like ride around town with his friends, have adventures like explore, collect firewood.”
Andrew’s father, David Sutter, said for every bit Andrew pushed himself in his academics he applied the same effort to pushing himself physically on his frequent trips with family and friends to parks in Texas and Colorado. David said he has never seen anyone work as hard as Andrew did.
“I learned that the harder you work the better you become, and that’s what he always strived for, to become the best student and academic that he could become,” David said. “I watched him push himself beyond belief. I watched him once ride up a 12,000 foot mountain in Colorado on his mountain bike and then fly down the other side of that mountain at 40 miles an hour.”
Harrison Brewer, industrial engineering senior, said one of his favorite memories of Andrew is when they went to Pedernales Falls State Park to go hiking.
“Toward the end of our trip, we found a pretty big cliff overlooking a deep section of the river, and despite my attempts to stop him he climbed to the top and jumped the 40-plus feet down to the water,” Brewer said. “It was spectacular and hilarious and a little terrifying all at the same time, and he loved every second of it.”
David said while Andrew had an adventurous spirit, it was rarely visible to those who did not know him.
“He had a calm demeanor about himself; he wasn’t very boisterous,” David said. “He wasn’t the loud guy in the room; he was always a man of few words. He was very quiet, and yet everyone who really knew him knew he had a tremendous sense of humor. When he would speak up people would listen people would love his humor and his quiet way of speaking up when needed.”
Bethany Sutter, management senior and Andrew’s sister, said thank you to her brother in a letter she read at his funeral.
“College hasn’t been easy for me, but no matter the hour you made sure I was taken care of,” Bethany said. “Thank you for being a constant in my life, thank you for holding me accountable even when it made me mad, thank you for dropping everything to be my big brother even when it wasn’t exactly convenient and thank you for always showing up.”
Brewer said he has taken Andrew’s “never-give-up” motto to heart.
“I learned that to accomplish great things in life you have to push yourself past the point where you want to quit,” Brewer said. “Your brain always gives up before your body does, and he had this unbelievable level of self-discipline that gave him the ability to accomplish anything and everything he desired.”