UPDATED: Keegan ’12 dies in car accident

By James Lu and Daniel Sisgoreo
Staff Reporters
Monday, May 28, 2012

Marina Keegan ’12 was killed Saturday afternoon in a car accident near Dennis, Mass. She was 22.

Keegan was a passenger in a 1997 Lexus ES300 sedan driven by Michael Gocksch ’12. The vehicle was traveling on Route 6 eastbound on Cape Cod when, shortly after 2 p.m., it drifted off the road and hit the right-side guardrail, according to a preliminary investigation by the Massachusetts State Police. The Lexus then “careened back across the road, crashed into the left-side guardrail and rolled over at least twice” before coming to a rest on the road, the police said in a Saturday evening press release.

Keegan was pronounced dead at the scene by Dennis emergency responders. Gocksch was taken to Cape Cod Hospital, from which he was released late Saturday evening. The cause of the crash remains unclear, but police said both Keegan and Gocksch were wearing seatbelts and that the vehicle’s speed was “not a factor in the severity of the crash.” Route 6 eastbound was closed off until 5:45 p.m. to allow for rescue operations and preliminary investigations into the crash to begin.

Keegan’s death reverberated throughout the University, eliciting tributes from friends, professors and other members of the Yale community. Yale College Dean Mary Miller informed members of the Yale College community of the tragedy in a Sunday morning email.

“Marina was an exceptional young woman, an outstanding student and a dear friend and a vibrant member of this community,” Miller said. “Her death is a tragedy for all who knew her.”

While Miller said the University does not yet know what arrangements Keegan’s family will make to remember her life, it will “find ways to honor Marina’s memory” and inform members of the Yale community about them through residential college masters and deans.

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