Both Brett Smith ’06 and Eric Wenzel ’03 continue to recover from serious injuries sustained in the Jan. 17 car accident that killed four other students.
Smith was moved Tuesday from the intensive care unit at Norwalk Hospital and is now in satisfactory condition, a hospital supervisor said. He was still in a coma as of Wednesday evening, the Associated Press reported.
Also Tuesday, Wenzel was discharged from Bridgeport Hospital in fair condition, hospital officials said. Wenzel suffered internal injuries, broken ribs, a broken collar bone, and a facial fracture in the crash.
The students were returning from a Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity event in New York City Jan 17. when the car they were riding in struck a jack-knifed tractor-trailer, killing driver Sean Fenton ’04 and passengers Kyle Burnat ’05, Andrew Dwyer ’05, and Nicholas Grass ’05.
Cameron Fine ’06, Zachery Bradley ’05, and Christopher Gary ’06, who were also passengers in the car, were released from the hospital in the days following the accident.
David S. Rayburn, the National Transportation Safety Board investigator who is leading a probe into the fatal crash, said poor lighting may have been a factor. Lights along the strip of Interstate 95 where the crash occurred were not working the morning of the accident.
Both excessive speed and alcohol were discounted by the NTSB as factors contributing to the accident. However, driver fatigue may have contributed, investigators said. Armando Salgado, the driver of the Arrowhead Trucking Company freightliner that caused the accident, got a sufficient amount of sleep prior to the accident, Rayburn said. But Fenton was “up all night before the accident,” Rayburn said.
The NTSB investigation is ongoing.
A memorial service for Burnat will be held Feb. 15 in Battell Chapel at 1 p.m. A reception will be held after the service in the Calhoun College Master’s House.