Deaths Stun M-S Students By STEVE BAUER MAHOMET – Students at Mahomet-Seymour High School, who should have been celebrating the end of the school year and the start of summer, gathered in small, somber groups Thursday to share their grief over tragic deaths and injuries to classmates and friends. "Things are very solemn in our school," Del
Ryan, principal at the high school, said Thursday afternoon. Injured in the wreck were passengers Ethan Abdel-Haq, 15, and Karl Schulttenover, 15, both of Mahomet, and Andrew P. Thompson, 19, of New York. Andrew Thompson and Karl Schulttenover were both listed in good condition today at Carle Hospital, Urbana. Ethan Abdel-Haq was listed in critical condition this morning, also at Carle. The teens were all part of a Campus Life youth group heading to their spring culmination dinner at the Beef House in Covington, Ind., according to Ryan. "All of them involved in this accident were just super kids," Ryan said. "You couldn't ask for better kids." School officials had
counselors and social workers available Thursday for any students who
wanted to talk with them, Ryan said. Final exams
for high school seniors, which had been scheduled for Thursday and
today, were canceled, with any students who wished to take a test to
boost their
final grade having that option later. "We had a very quiet, very somber mood," Ryan said. "It takes a lot of fortitude and a lot of courage to get through this. We're trying to make our kids stronger for this tragedy happening in their lives." Wednesday's crash marked the second fatal accident in the area between Champaign and Danville in a month. It also marked a second construction zone death involving a Mahomet-Seymour student in a month. Anna M. Dewhirst, 14, of Mahomet was killed on Good Friday, April 13, in a rear-end collision on Interstate 57 about two miles north of Effingham. The teen's mom, Marla Dewhirst, had slowed her car for a construction zone when her car was rear-ended and forced into another car in front of hers, according to Illinois State Police. " The girl we lost a month ago was a freshman," Ryan said. "Three of the boys in the car (Wednesday night) were freshman. So we're talking about four kids from the same class of 210 kids." On April 9, an Urbana teen-ager was killed when she failed to slow for construction and swerved into the rear of a truck in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 74 near St. Joseph. Serena R. Wilson, 18, died as a result of a three-vehicle accident. A passenger in her car was injured. The need for caution in that area will persist until November, as work continues on a 16-mile stretch from about two miles east of the St. Joseph interchange to just east of the U.S. 150 interchange near Danville, according to state transportation officials. Asphalt will be removed and replaced in the eastbound and westbound driving lanes, while the passing lanes will be patched and resurfaced. Drainage tiles and guard rails will be replaced along the route and improvements will be made where intersections meet the crossroads on ramps. Wednesday's fatal accident happened about 6:30 p.m., according to state police. Adam Abdel-Haq was driving the passenger car, which struck the rear of a semitrailer truck that had stopped because of traffic backed up from two earlier crashes. The first wreck involved three trucks in the construction zone west of the Oakwood exit at 4:50 p.m. Wednesday. Two other trucks were involved in another accident at 5:27 p.m., state police said. Both of those accidents backed up traffic on the interstate. At the time of Wednesday's fatal
crash, state police were on the scene investigating the two previous
accidents and construction flaggers were
flagging vehicles to slow down, said Mike Monseur, a state transportation
spokesman. "
We decided we wanted to have more signs out there shortly after the project
started," Monseur said. " Not only do we have warning signs, we also have 'Give 'Em a Brake' signs, reminding people to slow down," Monseur said. The eastbound lanes
of I-74 have a pair of orange signs warning "Construction
next 16 miles" as the first warning. A long series of saw-horses
marked with arrows then directs motorists to begin merging into one lane.
There are also a series of tall traffic cones and warning signs that
read "Construction 2 miles ahead" and two flashing arrow signs. " Traffic doesn't pay a bit of attention to me," said C. Pat Mulrooney, a flagman for Champaign Asphalt working in a construction zone one mile west of the Oakwood exit on Thursday afternoon. "But put a state cop there and they creep by." The highway department has grants to pay for hiring off-duty state troopers for extra patrols, which has been done in the I-74 project, he said. In this case, the traffic was stopped and backed up for several miles due to the earlier accidents. Kurt Salmon,
vice president of Cross Construction in Urbana, which is scheduled to
do additional work on I-74 just east of the current site,
said construction on the interstates is the most dangerous because of
the speeds involved. State police Sgt. Rory Steidl said motorists have to pay close attention to the road. " It's frustrating both professionally and personally to see people seriously injured and killed in crashes that are entirely preventable," Steidl said. NOTE: The preceding article was written exactly one week before yet another teen, 17-year-old Carl Comrie of Danville, Illinois, was killed when his stopped car was rear-ended by a semitrailer truck in the I-74 work zone. All told, five teenagers were killed in east-central Illinois work zones in 2001. At least three more were injured. Work zones are hazardous places. Please:
(Remember, you’re not alone out there!)
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