Car Crash Kills 4 - Injures 5 (Yale DKE's)

[RUgreek]

Got this off of The Chronicle. Sad New Year for DKE.

http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/01/2003012006n.htm

Four Yale University students died after their sport-utility vehicle hit a jackknifed tractor-trailer rig before dawn Friday on a snowy interstate highway. They were among nine students who were traveling in the vehicle as it returned from a fraternity event in New York.

According to a university statement, three of the students -- Kyle Burnat, Andrew Dwyer, and Sean Fenton -- died on Friday. The fourth student, Nicholas Grass, died on Saturday at a hospital near the scene of the accident, which occurred on Interstate 95 on the border between Fairfield and Bridgeport, Conn.

Two of the other five students in the vehicle at the time of the accident, Brett Smith and Eric Wenzel, were in critical condition on Sunday, and a third, Zachary Bradley, remained under observation at the hospital. Cameron Fine and Christopher Gary were discharged from the hospital on Sunday.

The nine students were returning from a fraternity event in New York at about 5 a.m. while it was still dark when their vehicle slammed into a tractor-trailer that had lost control on the icy roadway and crossed into oncoming traffic. Three other vehicles were involved in the accident, but none of the occupants of those vehicles was seriously injured.

There were no reports on whether alcohol or other substances were involved. The crash is still being investigated.

All nine students were members or pledges of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Most of them were players on the university's baseball and football teams.

The university canceled home athletic events on Friday, and instead held a memorial service in the gymnasium on Friday night.

In a statement about the accident, university officials said they planned to offer counseling services to all students. "I know I speak for all of us when I express my profound grief and sadness at these tragic events and pray for the injured to make a full and speedy recovery," Linda Koch Lorimer, secretary of the university, said in the statement.

[hoosier]

The GA guy who died had been a great high school athlete at Woodward Academy, and had been an intern for US Senator Zell Miller last summer. Miller's summer softball team was tops.

Quite a loss.

There was a huge obit in the Atlanta newspaper www.accessatlanta.com

[MSKKG]

What a tragedy.

[mmcline]

I knew Kyle through friends. This is just another accident that has hit close to home.. There have been at least 3 other accidents this year that have claimed Atlanta area college students that went to atlanta area private school and that were in my graduating class. I am tired of hearing of people that I have heard of or that I am mutual friends with being killed in car accidents

[kmp1552]

The new reports are now saying that they don't think it was a fraternity event they were returning from, just a night in NYC. They were one of a couple cars headed back from there at the time. Hopefully they find that it was not fraternity related. The brothers of the men are in my thoughts and prayers.

[madmax]

Originally posted by kmp1552
The new reports are now saying that they don't think it was a fraternity event they were returning from, just a night in NYC. They were one of a couple cars headed back from there at the time. Hopefully they find that it was not fraternity related. The brothers of the men are in my thoughts and prayers.

They were returning from a party that was hosted by an alumnus.

[stagebear]

some people here on campus knew one of the guys thats in critical condition. they say he's an amazing athlete and a great guy. they're all in our thoughts and prayers.

[Opie25]

The Boston Globe
January 23, 2003,

DEADLY YALE CRASH OCCURRED AFTER RUSH-WEEK RITE
FRATERNITY MEN HAD PARTIED IN NYC

By Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff

NEW HAVEN - The early-morning crash that killed four Yale students and
injured five others last week on Interstate 95 followed a night of reveling
in a New York City bar as part of a rush week tradition that entails the
capture of a senior fraternity member by freshman pledges.

The ritual, which goes back generations in the Delta Kappa Epsilon
fraternity at Yale, led other upperclassmen to New York last Thursday, on a
mission to liberate the senior. On the return trip to New Haven, a sport
utility vehicle carrying the nine Yale students crashed into a jackknifed
tractor-trailer.

State Police said yesterday that they have yet to determine what caused the
crash on an icy, poorly lighted northbound stretch of highway near
Bridgeport shortly after 5 a.m. Friday. "It is way too early to determine
what caused this," said Sergeant J. Paul Vance, spokesman for the
Connecticut State Police. However, Vance said, early toxicology results
showing the blood-alcohol level of the deceased student driver could be
made public tomorrow, along with other initial findings. Investigations
into the crash are also being conducted by the National Transportation
Safety Board. Final results of the investigations are not expected for six
to eight weeks.

Members of the fraternity, of which all nine crash victims were members or
pledges, spoke little publicly this week, saying they have been directed
not to speak with the news media. However, the fraternity president said
the SUV that crashed had a "designated driver" at the wheel.

University officials yesterday offered little comment on the crash, except
to say that the school is cooperating with authorities and that officials
are doing all they can to assist grieving families and students.

"From the moment this happened on Friday, everyone in this university has
worked around the clock to help the families and the friends of the
students who were killed, as well as those of the students injured," said
Tom Conroy, a Yale spokesman.

The crash has rocked this campus, marking the start of the new semester
with funerals and memorial services for the four students who died: Kyle M.
Burnat, 19, of College Park, Ga., Andrew K. Dwyer, 20, of Hobe Sound, Fla.,
Sean R. Fenton, 20, of Newport Beach, Calif., and Nicholas G. Grass, 19, of
Holyoke. Three of the injured students have been released from area
hospitals but two, Brett D. Smith, 18, of Papillion, Neb., and Eric W.
Wenzel, 21, of Garden City, N.Y., remained hospitalized yesterday,
according to university officials.

The tragedy has also highlighted the arm's-length relationship between the
university and its fraternities, onetime dominant social empires that have
been forced off campus and are independent of the university. While hazing
is a barred activity, university officials acknowledged they are reliant on
students to report activity that may be deemed inappropriate.

"The fraternities are not part of the university," Conroy said. "The
university does not run them, so we don't supervise fraternities."

David Easlick, executive director of Delta Kappa Epsilon, said the national
umbrella of the fraternity does not monitor fraternity activities and was
unaware of the Yale chapter's pledge ritual.

"It's no national tradition. It's a thing that Yale students do," Easlick
said.

The game began Thursday night when six freshmen captured a senior
fraternity member as part of a Hell Week initiation rite that members said
has been played out for six decades.

The senior had been prepped in advance, and there were rules about where he
could be taken and how long he could be kept hidden, according to Nicholas
Sinatra, 21, a senior and president of Delta Kappa Epsilon at Yale.

The freshmen opted to take their captive to New York City by train. The
senior told other fraternity members via cellphone where he was being
taken, according to one freshman pledge who asked not to be identified.

Meanwhile, 16 upperclassmen had driven to New York City in three vehicles.
They met up with some chapter alumni. Later, the upperclassmen "recovered"
the captive senior from the freshmen and the whole group gathered at a bar,
Sinatra said.

Shortly after 3 a.m., the group of 23 decided to head home, Sinatra said.
Because the next train back to New Haven was not leaving until 5 a.m., the
six freshmen and the senior opted to split up among the three vehicles of
the upperclassmen for the trip back to Yale.

Sinatra said that he, Fenton, and one other fraternity member were
designated drivers. Sinatra said he had nothing to drink.

The caravan departed in roughly 20-minute intervals starting at about 3
a.m., Sinatra said. The sport utility vehicle that crashed, driven by
Fenton and carrying eight passengers, was the second to leave, Sinatra said.

Sinatra said his vehicle was the last to depart New York, at approximately
3:45 a.m. Sinatra said he stopped at a McDonald's en route and shortly
after 5 a.m. saw the crash from the highway.

The accident occurred near Exit 24, at the Bridgeport/Fairfield line, where
a tractor-trailer that had skidded out of control and crashed was blocking
northbound lanes.

"We knew it was a horrible accident," Sinatra said. "We had no idea it was
our friends."

Delta Kappa Epsilon was founded at Yale in 1844. Both President Bush and
his father, former President George H.W. Bush, were members. It was not the
university's first fraternity, but for years it was Yale's most prominent.
When fraternities lost favor on campus in the 1960s and relinquished their
ornate clubhouses, Delta Kappa Epsilon was the sole fraternity that
remained active, meeting in common rooms until it reemerged with a new
house off campus in 1987.

Today, there are about 15 fraternities and sororities with Yale members,
according to Conroy, the Yale spokesman.

In contrast to some campuses that have stepped up their monitoring of Greek
systems following alcohol-related deaths - like one at MIT in 1997 that
resulted in a $6 million settlement paid by the university - Yale has
maintained a somewhat distanced relationship with its Greek system, which
some describe as a subculture on a campus where residential colleges
dominate social life.

But university officials said that at a time like this, divides break down.
The university has made chaplains available, along with counseling for the
members, among other services and assistance.

"Whether it was just a group of students whose only affiliation was
friendship or whether it was members of a fraternity - that makes no
difference to the university in how they respond to helping the students,"
Conroy said.

Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company

[Opie25]

Associated Press
January 24, 2003

By DIANE SCARPONI, Associated Press Writer

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- Lights along a stretch of Interstate 95 were out when an
SUV crashed into a jackknifed tractor-trailer, killing four Yale students,
investigators confirmed Friday.

Investigators also said early tests found that none of the drivers was
intoxicated and that the SUV was not traveling at a grossly excessive speed.

The road had been salted and sanded in the hours leading up to the accident.
The driver of the tractor-trailer told investigators it was dark and he thought
he hit a patch of black ice, then lost control of his rig. The Yale students
were traveling back from New York after an all-night fraternity pledge event. A
final report by the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to take a
year to complete.

In a preliminary report, the NTSB said the lights may have been out because a
contractor working on a nearby bridge on the opposite side of the highway from
the crash had hit a light pole a few hours before.

"All the witnesses and the drivers that we talked to in that area said it was
very dark and it was difficult to see. It was difficult to see the weather
conditions," said NTSB investigator David S. Rayburn.

The lights were knocked out to the southbound side at about 1 a.m. on Jan. 17
and were not repaired until 10:30 a.m. The crash happened on the northbound
side of the highway at about 5 a.m.

Lights were also out on the northbound side at the time of the accident, but
Rayburn said he did not yet know if the light pole accident was to blame, or if
something else happened to those lights.

An experiment using similar conditions found it was probably so dark that an
oncoming car could not have seen the tractor-trailer from 50 feet away. With
dim lights or bright lights, the truck could be seen, Rayburn said.

The tractor-trailer had crossed the median and the back end of it was sticking
into the northbound lane when the SUV hit it. The cab had detached, so the
lights on the flatbed trailer were out.

On the northbound side, about 46 lights on the main road and 16 lights on the
ramps were out.

The light outage was not reported to the state Department of Transportation at
the time, he said. Investigators were still looking into whether such a report
was required, and why the report was not done.

Also, state police cruisers and state snowplow drivers were operating in the
area in the hours before the crash. Police were investigating if these drivers
reported a problem with the lights, said State Police Sgt. Paul Vance.

Construction companies are required to have a DOT inspector on site, he said.

The construction company, M. DeMatteo/Brunalli, could not be reached for
comment. Telephone messages were left at the company's office.

The NTSB said it would continue to investigate whether the state had used
appropriate Jersey barriers on the road. The barriers are temporary while
larger barriers are being installed.

Original road designs envisioned two parallel sets of barriers along the
median, but that was changed to one because of a highway resurfacing job. The
NTSB is investigating whether the federal government had signed off of the new
design.

The truck driver, Armando Salgado, 33, had three years on the job and had
rested for seven hours before beginning his shift. He worked for Arrow Trucking
from Tulsa, Okla., and had been on the road about three hours when the crash
happened.

Rayburn said Arrow Trucking has a satisfactory safety record and that previous
media reports of safety problems were incorrect.

The driver of the SUV, Yale junior Sean Fenton, 20, had been up all night with
a fraternity pledge event in New York City along with the other students.
Fenton may have slept earlier in the day, he said.

Based on interviews with some of the survivors, Rayburn said most of the nine
students in the SUV were asleep at the time of the crash.

"Preliminary tests show there was no evidence of alcohol intoxication," Rayburn
said.

The students, most of whom were large Yale football players or baseball
players, were jammed in one car because another car that was supposed to take
them back from New York had broken down, he said.

"The vehicle is not designed to carry nine people," Rayburn said. He said
investigators would study whether the overloaded SUV was a factor in the
accident.

All of the students were members or pledges of DKE, the largest fraternity at
Yale. David Easlick, the fraternity's executive director in Washington, D.C.,
said as part of the pledge event, seven freshmen "captured" a senior DKE member
and took him to New York on Thursday.

A total of 16 upperclassmen then traveled to New York to try and find him,
Easlick told the New Haven Register.

"It's a basic hide-and-go-seek game," Easlick said. "Once they find him, they
have to give him a good time, somewhere. It's not a kidnapping."

The crash has prompted the national fraternity to review its pledge activities.

"We'll have the alumni group take a look at the whole initiation process and
make some changes," Easlick said.

Killed were Andrew Dwyer, 19, of Hobe Sound, Fla., Nicholas Grass, 19, of
Holyoke, Mass; Kyle Burnat, 19, of Atlanta; and Sean Fenton, 20, of Newport
Beach, Calif.

Fenton was the driver. Investigators would not say where the other students
were sitting.

Only Fenton and another passenger in the car were wearing seat belts, but
Rayburn said seat belts may not have helped the victims, since the SUV rammed
partially under the tractor-trailer, damaging the roof.

The five other students and Salgado were injured. Two students remain in the
hospital.

Lawyers for the Fenton and Grass families attended the NTSB briefing to gather
information.

"The family wants to know what happened and why," said Robert Adelman, a lawyer
for the Fenton family.

Joel Faxon, a lawyer for Grass' family, said he wanted to hear investigators
determine a probable cause for the accident before advising the family of its
options.

"There are issues with the state. There are issues with the driver of the
truck," Faxon said.

(c) 2003 The Associated Press.