Three seniors at Concord-Carlisle High School are dead after a crash in Florida.
Three seniors at a Massachusetts high school were killed and another critically injured in a car crash in Florida on Monday night, during spring break, school officials said Tuesday.
The four Concord-Carlisle High School students were in an SUV that hit a trailer being hauled by a truck making a U-turn on a highway in the Panama City Beach area, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
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WATCH HEREConcord-Carlisle Regional School District Superintendent Laurie Hunter said in a statement that the community was devastated "beyond what we can understand today," adding, "I know that the difficult days ahead will be ones we face together."
She named the students who died as Hannah Wasserman, Jimmy McIntosh and Maisey O'Donnell. Wasserman and O'Donnell were from Concord, as is the fourth student, whose name wasn't released; McIntosh was from Carlisle.
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SIGN UP She said grief counseling will be available at the school on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to noon and again on Monday when students return to school. This week is spring break in Massachusetts.
“We offer our deep condolences to the families and friends of Hannah and Jimmy during this unimaginable time," Concord-Carlisle Regional School District Superintendent Laurie Hunter said in an initial statement. "Their loss will be deeply felt by our school community as well as by so many families in Carlisle and Concord. We are also keeping the other two students in our thoughts and wish them strength and a swift recovery."
Hunter announced O'Donnell's death in a follow-up message to the community, writing, "Maisey is in the organ donation program as her family hopes that it will give meaning to these meaningless tragedies. The fourth student remains in critical condition."
"She was modest," Joe Chirico, head coach of Boston Area Diving, said of O'Donnell. "She didn't brag, she was a good teammate."
O'Donnell was a two-time state champion in springboard and was set to go to Williams in the fall.
"She would have dove there," said Chirico. "She would have made the NCAA nationals at her level."
According to Florida Highway Patrol, the crash occurred on U.S. Highway 98 west of Inlet Beach, which is in the Florida Panhandle.
They said an SUV with four 18-year-olds from Massachusetts was headed west on Highway 98 when it crashed into a tractor-trailer performing a U-turn in the median around 9:30 p.m. The SUV struck the trailer and was thrown across the eastbound lanes, coming to rest in the tree line off the highway.
The driver and a passenger in the SUV were pronounced dead at the scene, and two other passengers were taken to an area hospital in critical condition.
Footage shared by police showed a badly damaged vehicle resting on its roof in the treeline near the highway.
No one in the tractor-trailer was injured, according to police.
