Crash on Highway Kills 3 Yale Students

FAIRFIELD, Conn. — A tractor-trailer lost control on a slippery highway Friday and collided with a sport utility vehicle filled with nine Yale University students, including members of the football and baseball teams, killing three students, officials said.

Eight others were injured when the SUV slammed into the back of the rig, which had partially crossed over the barrier separating the northbound and southbound lanes of Interstate 95, state police said. Four vehicles were involved in the crash, but the only serious injuries were in the SUV, authorities said.

Yale athletic events were canceled for the day.

“I know I speak for you all when I express our grief for our lost comrades and our prayers for the injured to make a speedy recovery,” Richard Brodhead, Yale’s undergraduate dean, said in a campus-wide e-mail.

State police identified the dead as the SUV’s driver, Sean Fenton, 20, of Newport Beach; Andrew Dwyer, 19, of Hobe Sound, Fla.; and Kyle Burnat, 19, of Atlanta, a pitcher on Yale’s baseball team.

Another pitcher, 19-year-old Nicholas Grass of Holyoke, Mass., and football player Eric Wenzel, 21, of Garden City, N.Y., suffered critical injuries.

Four other students -- all of them football or baseball players -- and the drivers of two of the other vehicles involved suffered less serious injuries.

No citations had been issued in the crash.