MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — Four of the five people who died in a fiery wrong-way crash this week were young men who attended two Massachusetts colleges.
The men identified by state police on Tuesday were in a car heading north on Interstate 495 in Middleborough early Monday when they were struck head-on by a car going south in the northbound lanes. The driver of the wrong-way car, a Fall River woman, also died.
It appears the 20-year-old man driving the car, Kraig Diggs, didn”t have enough time to avoid the oncoming car, said Massachusetts State Police Maj. Anthony Thomas.
Diggs and one of his passengers, Jordan Galvin-Jutras, 19, were from Barnstable and attended Anna Maria College in Paxton. The other passengers were Jordan Fisher, 19, of Harwich, and Cory Licata, 18, of West Babylon, New York, who both attended Becker College in Worcester.
Family members said Diggs, Galvin-Jutras and Fisher were related.
The driver of the wrong-way car was identified as Valantein Burson, 31.
“The mood here is very, very somber,” said Andrew Klein, the vice president for student affairs at Anna Maria, a Catholic college with about 850 full-time undergraduate students.
Diggs was a sophomore business major while Galvin-Jutras was a sophomore fire sciences major, he said.
The school held a prayer vigil Monday and has made grief counselors available. A memorial service will be held at a future date.
“Our thoughts are with the families of these two young men who had just joined our campus community to begin their college studies this fall,” said Nancy Crimmin, senior vice president of student affairs at Becker College, a school with about 2,000 students.
She said Fisher was a freshman studying business administration and Licata was a freshman studying interactive media. The college is also providing counseling services for students and said a memorial service will likely be held later.
The crash remains under investigation. Police are trying to determine why and where Burson got on the wrong side of the highway and whether drugs or alcohol were involved.
