EDMONTON — Alcohol and speed are believed to be factors in a Saturday morning collision south of Grande Prairie, Alta., that killed four teens and critically injured a 15-year-old, all of whom may have played for the same high school football team.
The teens, all students at Grande Prairie Composite high school, were driving on Highway 668, an industrial road, about two kilometres east of Highway 40 when the vehicles collided.
Two of the teens killed were 15 years old, and the other two were 16. A 15-year-old boy was airlifted to hospital with critical injuries, and is currently in an Edmonton area hospital.
Family members identified one of the dead as Vincent Stover, 16. The Grade 11 student joined his first football team when he was seven years old, said his grandmother Sheila Wilson.
“He was the littlest guy on the team, but he loved it anyways,” Wilson said.
This summer, Stover was helping a local carpenter to save up money for a trip to San Diego with the Warriors, Grande Prairie Composite’s football team.
From what Wilson understands, Stover and some of his friends from the football team were on their way home from a party when their car was struck by the pickup truck.
Grande Prairie Mayor Bill Given, who was born and raised in the city, said he cannot recall another time when one crash claimed so many young lives at once.
“It’s obviously a tragic loss. I think the community right now is still in a little bit of shock. Grande Prairie isn’t a small town, but we do have a very close-knit community,” Given said.
Grande Prairie Composite High School is one of two high schools in Grande Prairie, and the only public secondary school in the city.
“It will affect a significant amount of the school-age kids in the community,” Given said.
The driver of the pickup truck, also from Grande Prairie, fled the scene but was arrested a short time later. He remains in custody and charges are pending.
The investigation is ongoing, with speed and alcohol being investigated as contributing factors.
William Vavrek, a photographer in Grande Prairie, arrived at the scene about 20 minutes after the accident was reported.
“There was a crushed car, there was two engine trucks and a dozen firefighters taking people out of the vehicle,” said Vavrek. “There was actually a bunch of teenagers on the side of the road.”
Vavrek said the car was in the south ditch of the road. RCMP took the memory card from Vavrek’s camera, he said.
The deadly accident comes less than a week after four teens from a small town in southern Alberta were killed in a single-vehicle rollover. Before dawn last Sunday, paramedics and police found a car upside down and partially submerged in a creek east of Magrath, 32 kilometres south of Lethbridge. The victims of that accident were two 16-year-old boys and two 14-year-old girls.
In that accident, initial investigations pointed to speed and inexperience, not alcohol.
original source: http://www.canada.com/news/Four+teens+killed+after+crash+Grande+Prairie+Alta/5592699/story.html
No comments:
Post a Comment