2 upstate crashes kill 3 students on Thanksgiving holiday trips
Published: November 26, 2009, 12:30 am
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PARIS, N. Y.—A car carrying four Syracuse University architecture students to New York City for the Thanksgiving break spun off a country road in Central New York, killing two 19- year-olds and injuring two others.
In another similar, one-car crash in the Adirondacks, a 21- year-old student at Potsdam State College was killed and two other people were injured.
The Oneida County Sheriff’s Office said Young Wang of Norwood, N. J., and Saem Oh, of Hauppauge on Long Island, were thrown from a car and killed Tuesday night when the vehicle spun off the road on a curve, hit a tree and flipped over several times in the rural town of Paris, 40 miles east of Syracuse.
The driver, Hyun Sung Chang, of Duluth, Ga., and another passenger, Chaewan Shin, who lives with a host family in Newton, N. H., escaped with non-life-threatening injuries. The group had rented a car and were planning to stay at a bed-and- breakfast in New York, County Investigator Richard Dodge said.
All four Korean-born 19- year-olds enrolled this fall at the university’s school of architecture. Wang had Canadian citizenship, and Oh was a South Korean citizen, but both had permanent resident status in the United States, school spokesman Kevin Morrow said.
Their deaths were relayed to the campus community “with tremendous sadness” by school Chancellor Nancy Cantor.
“At a time when many of us are preparing to gather with family, friends and loved ones to joyously celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, we are reminded of how precious and fragile life can be,” she said.
Potsdam State student Tyrell Spencer, 21, of Uniondale on Long Island, who was heading home for the holiday, was killed Tuesday afternoon when a car careered off a road near Tupper Lake and overturned several times, state police said. The 20-year-old driver and an 18-year-old passenger were recovering from neck injuries.
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