Fiery crash claims the lives of 5 Fairport High graduates


Updated: 06/27/07 12:09 PM



FAIRPORT (AP) -- Five young women who graduated last week from a suburban Rochester high school were killed when the sport utility vehicle they were in crashed head-on into a tractor-trailer and burst into flames, authorities said today.
The Ontario County Sheriff's Office said the Chevrolet Trail Blazer was traveling eastbound on Route 5 shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday when it passed another vehicle and returned to the eastbound lane. Deputies said the SUV then veered into the westbound lane where it collided with the tractor-trailer. Both vehicles caught fire.
The victims were pronounced dead at the scene, deputies said.
Fairport High School Principal David Paddock said four of the women were members of the cheerleading squad -- Bailey Goodman, Hannah Congdon, Meredith McClure and Sara Monnat -- and he identified the fifth as Katie Shirley. All five graduated Thursday.
He said the group was heading to the Keuka Lake camp of one of their parents and four friends were following in another car when the accident happened.
By this morning, dozens of students, teachers and a few parents -- some of them hugging and weeping -- had gathered on a hillside overlooking the school, located in a tidy Erie Canal village of about 6,000, located 10 miles southeast of Rochester.
"I really just came to hug the kids and cry with them. I don't understand any more about this than they do," said Cathy Tocci, religious education director at the village's Church of the Assumption. Tocci said Congdon and Monnat were members of her church.
The crash happened along a 55-mph stretch just before the crest of a slight rise on a two-lane road in the rural town of East Bloomfield, a western Finger Lakes community about 20 miles southeast of Rochester.
The SUV ended up on the side of the road and partially under the charred rig, which was being removed from the scene late Wednesday morning. A nearby maple tree was scorched by flames.
The truck driver, David Laverty, 50, of Olean, wasn't injured.

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How very sad!

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Casey loving wife to Steven mom to 4 bratty girls Amanda, Rebecca, Jessica and Makayla
Where did my baby go

That is just tragic. Those girls had their whole lives ahead of them. Have they figured out why it happened? If there were parents following the car, it probably wasn't alcohol.

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Frugal is being wise with your money and resources and cheap is forcing everyone else to.

How very sad. My prayers go out to those families.

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DS - 8
DD - 5

Oh goodness, how sad. I be praying for them and their families.

This is soooo very sad. We have family in this area, and it's so hard to see accidents like this happen in our own community. Many prayers will go out to these families.

Wow. Horrible. I have one this same age. I can't imagine what the parents are going through.

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Shaking in my boots (well, if I was wearing them in the middle of summer!), but glad to be back!

I continue to pray for these families and the community since I first heard this....

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"It's one of the most beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."
Ralph Waldo Emerson