5 New York High School Grads Die In Crash
A fiery head-on collision killed five women in a sport utility vehicle less than a week after they graduated from a suburban Rochester high school, the principal said Wednesday.Their Chevrolet Trail Blazer had just passed a vehicle late Tuesday when it swerved back across the two-lane road into oncoming traffic and hit a tractor-trailer, the Ontario County Sheriff’s Office said. Both vehicles caught fire.
The crash knocked down utility lines and cut phone service in the western half of Ontario County. The truck driver, David Laverty, 50, wasn’t injured.
The victims were pronounced dead at the scene, deputies said.
Fairport High School Principal David Paddock said four of the women were members of the cheerleading squad - Bailey Goodman, Hannah Congdon, Meredith McLure and Sara Monnat - and he identified the fifth as Katie Shirley. All five graduated Thursday.
“It is with overwhelming sadness that I inform all of you that five of our children, all of whom just graduated from FHS last Thursday evening, lost their lives earlier tonight in a car accident,” Paddock wrote in an e-mail sent to parents early Wednesday.
Four friends were following in another car when the SUV crashed, Paddock said. He didn’t know where they had been heading.
Dozens of students, teachers and parents, some hugging and weeping, gathered Wednesday morning on a hillside overlooking the school, located in an Erie Canal village of about 6,000, about 10 miles southeast of Rochester.