DKE deaths at Yale

[KSigkid]

This is a really sad story. Hope everyone else comes out of it ok.




Six other Yale athletes remain hospitalized

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ESPN.com news services


Yale sophomore pitcher Kyle Burnat and former Yale football player Sean Fenton were among the three Yale students who died in a chain-reaction crash on slick Interstate 95 early Friday morning. Six other Yale athletes were injured in the crash, three of them seriously.

Their condition, according to police:

-- Eric Wenzel, a senior halfback on the football team and a lacrosse goaltender, is in critical condition. He was the lacrosse team's most valuable player.

-- Brett Smith, a freshman quarterback, has serious injuries.

-- Nicholas Grass, a sophmore right-handed pitcher, has serious injuries.

-- Cameron Fine, a freshman offensive lineman, suffered minor non-threatening injuries and was in satisfactory condition.

-- Zach Bradley, a sophomore infielder, suffered a broken left arm and a broken jaw.

-- Christopher W. Gary, 18, a freshman linebacker, suffered non-life threatening injuries.

All six remain hospitalized, police said.

The third Yale student who died was Andrew Dwyer. The nine Yale students were traveling in the same SUV.

"I know I speak for you all when I express our grief for our lost comrades and our prayers for the injured to make a speedy recovery," Yale undergraduate Dean Brodhead stated in an e-mail.

Mike McDaniel, a freshman on the football team, said many of the victims were members or pledges in the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

"They weren't doing anything wrong," he said. "It wasn't their fault. ... The guys who were killed, they had a lot going for them."

Fraternity members would not comment Friday afternoon.

Brodhead said a service for students was scheduled at 7:30 p.m. today at a campus amphitheater. Afterward, the houses of residential college masters will be open for students, he said.

"I know you will also find less formal ways to help one another in this sad time," Brodhead wrote.

State police said a tractor-trailer lost control and crossed into oncoming traffic on I-95 early Friday, causing a chain-reaction crash.

The accident, near exit 24 at the Bridgeport/Fairfield town line occurred shortly after 5 a.m. and shut down I-95, the main highway along the Connecticut shoreline, for about three hours in both directions.

A northbound truck partially crossed the concrete barrier that separates the two sides of the highway, state police spokesman Sgt. J. Paul Vance said.

At that point, the rig straddling the median guardrail struck another tractor-trailer and a car, both heading south. The collisions resulted in minor injuries. But a sport utility vehicle carrying nine people smashed into the rear of the first tractor-trailer, Vance said.

Darcy Hripak, who works at a Cumberland Farms convenience store next to the highway, said workers there heard a crash just after 5 a.m.

"We just heard a big bang," Hripak said.

In the hours before the fatal accident, state police said there had been a number of other accidents reported on I-95 in Norwalk, New Haven and Westport when there was snow on the highway.

There was also a car rollover reported northbound about 4 a.m. in the area where the fatal accident occurred an hour later.