Three students who attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. were killed last Friday when the SUV they were driving spun out on the icy highway and collided with a semitruck.
There were five students in the car. James Adams, 20, of St. Paul, Minn., Paxton Harvieux, 21, of Stillwater, Minn. and Michael Goodgame, 20, of Westport, Conn. were all killed on the scene. William Sparks, 20, of Evanston, Ill. and Conor Eckert, 19, of Seattle, Wash. suffered serious injuries. The driver of the semitruck was unharmed.
First-year Carolyn Jedd, upon hearing the news, became fearful that these types of accidents could happen to anyone.
"It's really scary to think these things happen to college students," she said, "and it makes me concerned for the students of our campus."
Junior Jake Pezzuto thinks that this tragedy could be a learning opportunity for college students.
"People think they're invincible at times," he said. "They think that nothing bad can happen until something does happen."
Carleton College sophomore Jon Green did not personally know any of the students involved in the accident, but he explains that the atmosphere on campus after the crash was noticeably more somber.
Green was in his floor lounge on Friday night when he heard the news.
"We found out late that night," he said in a phone interview. "All we really knew then was that some of the members of the frisbee team had been in a car accident, and we got the details the next day."
Last Tuesday night, a DePauw student was hit by a car on Locust St. while crossing the street. The driver looked at his speedometer, and pressed on the brakes and turned his wheels when he saw the pedestrian, Nally read off the Indiana State Crash Report.
According to the report, the contact occurred at the right front quarter panel of the car. The pedestrian was not crossing at an intersection.
Nally explains that, on or around a college campus, drivers and pedestrians alike need to be hyper-aware of the amount of foot traffic.
"Students should be aware that, especially at nighttime when they are crossing the street, that they should use crosswalks," Nally said. "As drivers on our campus, we need to be extra aware of the increase in pedestrian traffic."
While telling a college student to look both ways before crossing the street may seem childish, Nally says, it is important that students do all they can to keep themselves safe.
Nally agrees with Pezzuto, in that accidents such as the crash that occurred in Northfield, Minn. provide a brief light into the reality that is life and death.
"[It's] one of those few glimpses that we're not invincible," she said. "[It's] part of maturing, where you start to realize that these things do happen, and sometimes they make no sense at all and they can be very very painful for a community to go through."
Nally cautions students to be careful when they are driving, especially in the icy conditions that the DePauw area has been experiencing recently, as this was what caused the accident just outside of the Carleton campus last week.
While Green knows that sudden deaths happen from time to time, he had not been prepared for something like this. He described the event as a learning experience.
"It's not like anyone could see this coming and it certainly took us all by surprise," Green said. "I suppose we can all learn from this."