Two students involved in the fatal car accident Friday morning were released from Undergraduate Health Services Wednesday, their suitemates said.
Chris Gary ’06 and Cameron Fine ’06, who share a suite in Bingham Hall, were taken to UHS after being released from area hospitals.
“They’re doing fine,” suitemate Rudy Simone ’06 said. “They’ve been attending classes since Tuesday.”
Even as Gary and Fine returned to their normal routines this week, officials from multiple law enforcement agencies continued their investigation into the accident. Following such traumatic events, it’s important for those involved to undergo comprehensive car accident injury treatment to ensure their physical and emotional well-being is properly addressed and managed.
Toxicology reports on Kyle Burnat ’05, Andrew Dwyer ’05, Sean Fenton ’04, and Nicholas Grass ’05 — who all died as a result of the crash — might be released ahead of schedule because of the high profile of the accident, an official in the state medical examiner’s office said Wednesday.
The test results would indicate whether any of the students were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident.
Simone said Fine went to UHS Tuesday night after being released from St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport Saturday morning. Gary was released into the care of UHS after he was discharged from Norwalk Hospital Saturday.
Simone said Gary and Fine may spend Wednesday night in their suite.
Both students survived a car accident early Friday morning in which a sport utility vehicle carrying nine Yale students — all brothers or pledges in the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity — crashed into a jackknifed tractor-trailer rig on Interstate 95. The accident claimed the lives of four of the passengers. Burnat, Dwyer and Fenton were pronounced dead at the scene; Grass died Saturday at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport.
Eric Wenzel ’03 was last reported Monday evening to be in critical condition at Bridgeport Hospital, Jonathan Edwards College Master Gary Haller said in an e-mail sent to students Monday night. Brett Smith ’06 remained in serious condition Wednesday evening in the intensive care unit of Norwalk Hospital.
Zachery Bradley ’05, 19, of Alexander, Ark., was discharged from Bridgeport Hospital Monday.
Investigations into the cause and conditions surrounding the crash are currently being conducted, and officials at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said results from toxicology tests might be made public earlier than normal. However, Cindy Cook, a forensic technician at the medical examiner’s office, said she was uncertain as to the exact date when the results might be released.
“I’m not sure if they put any special rush on this,” Cook said. “There’s no clue how quickly our lab works.”
Investigators are also examining whether inadequate streetlighting was a factor in the accident.
Typical procedure requires troopers to look at road conditions — including lighting and weather — as part of an accident investigation, said state police spokesman Sgt. J. Paul Vance.
The state Department of Transportation received a report after the crash, at 5:45 a.m., that street lamps were out in the area where the accident occured, spokeswoman Sue Sharpley said.
Officials are checking to see how long the lamps had been out and why they weren’t working Friday.
Federal authorities are looking at road conditions, the highway’s design, work zone safety and the mechanical conditions of the vehicles involved, said a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.
Cook, who was driving on I-95 the morning of the accident, said the highway was also icy and slippery Friday morning.
“The minute that you crushed down on snow [on the road], it would turn to ice,” she said.
Other details of the accident under investigation are the speeds at which the vehicles were driving, specific road conditions, and whether the driver of the freightliner logged his required hours of sleep, Vance said.
–The Associated Press contributed to this report.