LINCOLN — The Lincoln Community High School District is grieving after a fiery single-vehicle crash took the lives of four teenagers, including at least one former and two current students, and injured another two graduates currently attending college in Springfield.
Logan County Coroner Bob Thomas said the victims’ names have not been released as his office worked to verify the identity of each body. Logan County Sheriff Steve Nichols said all six involved were teenagers.
“The pathologist is researching the different avenues for us to positively identify them,” Thomas said Saturday evening. “We just don’t want to make any mistakes or make any errors that are hard to correct later. ... The families are aware of this and the funeral homes they have chosen are aware of this.”
Thomas planned on meeting with the victims’ families today and hoped to formally release their names afterward.
But word of the accident spread quickly throughout the community overnight Friday, and friends of the victims believed they knew who had died. Earlier in the day, mourners placed four white wooden crosses with each of the deceased victims’ first names near the charred tree at the crash site, along with flowers and other mementos of their young lives.
Saturday night, members of this tight-knit community packed Jefferson Street Christian Church in Lincoln for a memorial service. By then, word of the wreck was widespread and friends said two of the deceased victims, a teenaged boy and girl, were current Lincoln Community High students while another young man was a 2006 graduate. The fourth deceased victim, a teenage girl, apparently attended a different school.
Graduates Zach Rickord and Clark Schoonover, students at Springfield College in Illinois/Benedictine University, survived the crash and were taken to Memorial Medical Center. Rickord was listed in critical condition Saturday while Schoonover was in fair condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.
“We’re pulling together as a community because it’s a small enough town that everybody knows everybody. Everybody has probably dealt with one or most of these kids in the community here. It’s a horrible tragedy,” said Pat Hake, a baseball coach and teacher at Lincoln Community High. “I just saw some of these kids yesterday (Friday).”
Hake had two of the deceased victims in his physical education and driver’s education class respectively and coached Schoonover when he was at LCHS.
The teens’ pickup, which had an extended cab, apparently was traveling west on 1300th Street and continued on the downside of Polecat Hill before going off the road and hitting the tree about 11:30 p.m.
Middletown Fire Chief Jason Buss said when his department arrived, the truck was fully engulfed in flames.
Three of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene while a fourth died at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Lincoln, Thomas said.
Nichols would not release details about the accident, saying Illinois State Police crash reconstruction officers are investigating.
Seth Goodman, a 2006 graduate of Lincoln Community High who lives near the crash site, said he heard the ambulances and later felt his house shake as medical helicopters responded to pick up victims Friday night.
He didn’t learn until the next morning that his friend and former classmate was one of those killed. On Saturday, Goodman and Dusty Montgomery, another Lincoln Community High alum, were among a stream of mourners who visited the accident site to come to terms with what happened.
“(I came) just to see and kind of bring it to life because it just doesn’t seem real. It’s something you always hear about but don’t think it will happen to you,” Goodman said.
He and Montgomery remembered their former classmate’s bright smile and sense of humor as well as his desire to have his own farm.
Montgomery said she saw her friend at a local gas station about 9 p.m. Friday after the high school’s home basketball game that night had ended. He was with friends and appeared to be having fun.
Goodman added many people are affected by the tragedy.
“I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like at the high school (this week). They’re so scattered in ages that every class is impacted,” he said.
LCHS Superintendent Dean Langdon said local mental health counselors and ministers will be available when students return to school on Tuesday after the holiday weekend. The school has about 900 students.
“We want to provide as much support as we can,” he said. “These were all just outstanding kids.”
Hake said he spent most of Saturday at the hospital with Clark Schoonover, a baseball player at LCHS before playing at SCI/Benedictine, and his family.
“He’s going to be all right eventually physically. He’s got a couple broken bones,” he said. “He’s as comfortable as he can be I’m sure in light of what’s happened.”
Hake said many friends had shown up at Memorial to see Schoonover and Rickord.
“I’ve lived here eight years now (in Lincoln) and the centerpiece of this town is the high school. ... It’s very important to people in this town what our children are doing. This town will pull together and try to help the people who’ve been hurt heal and help with anything they can.” "
"Seth Goodman and Dusty Montgomery, both of Lincoln, visit the site east of Middletown where four teenagers were killed and two others were injured late Friday night in a single-vehicle wreck. The wreck occurred late Friday when the pickup the teens were riding in slammed into a tree at the bottom of a curved stretch of road near where 1300th Street crosses Polecat Hill and becomes 250th Avenue, just east of Middletown."
http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/25406.asp
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