Eight race-walkers and their coach were in a car accident on Saturday, January 12, as they headed for the Dartmouth Relays. The crash seriously injured three and sent all nine girls to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Six of the students are from Stuyvesant.
At around 3:30 p.m., Assistant Coach Erin Taylor was driving the rented Ford E350 12-person van north on I-91, about 15 minutes from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The van suddenly swerved into the wide, grassy median between the north- and southbound highways. The vehicle was airborne for some seconds and landed in the center of the median, rolling over two or three times down a small hill until it ended up beside the southbound highway with the driver’s side on the bottom.
The van landed over a depression that may have prevented the vehicle from crushing the passengers.
The road was dry and there was no indication as to why the van swerved off the road. According to passengers, an eyewitness told Vermont State Police that she was driving behind the van for about 15 minutes and, until the accident, noticed nothing irregular.
Two passengers and Taylor, all seated on the driver’s side, were trapped inside the van and were helped out by rescue workers. They suffered the most serious injuries.
Junior Valerie Piro suffered a spinal cord injury and underwent surgery. She is currently paralyzed from the waist down, which doctors hope is temporary.
Junior Lucia Hsiao fractured her neck and wrist and has a bruised lung. She is beginning physical therapy.
Taylor fractured her neck but was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, four days after the accident.
The six others, who exited the van with the assistance of motorists who stopped at the scene, suffered cuts and bruises and were released from the hospital the night of the accident.
Two race-walkers from Health Professions and Human Services High School, who had been training with the Stuyvesant team, were also in the van. One of them suffered a fractured collarbone. According to Principal Stanley Teitel, both girls have returned to their school.
According to students who were in the van, Taylor has safe driving practices. Taylor did not start driving until everyone had their seatbelts on.
Over the course of the five-hour drive, Taylor made two stops.
Vermont State troopers based at the next exit were minutes away from the accident. The hospital was between 10 and 15 minutes away.
“In terms of the emergency response, it was so rapid,” said senior and co-captain Huili Zhu, who was one of the passengers who did not suffer serious injury. “Troopers came almost right away.”
Piro was flown to the hospital by helicopter.
Drivers on the southbound highway helped those passengers that were stuck to get out and lent them jackets in the near-10 degree weather. Emergency responders had to rip away the roof to pull out Taylor.
Other coaches at the race helped get the students to their hotel that night. Two of the students’ parents drove the discharged girls home the next day.
Despite the accident, senior and co-captain Nina Yang and another student raced the mile as scheduled, placing fourth and fifth, respectively, out of 13 runners.
Yang had bruised her back, leg and hand, with two stitches on her finger. “I just popped a Tylenol and went,” she said.
“I don’t really think I’ve absorbed what really happened and how bad the accident really was,” Yang said three days after the crash.
All but one of the passengers was asleep in the moments leading up to the accident.
Yang woke up when she heard Taylor scream. “Next thing I knew,” Yang said, “we hit something [and] went airborne.”
Yang, who was sitting on the passenger side of the van, unbuckled her seatbelt and those of the two girls from Health Professions who were sitting in her row. As she was unbuckling Piro’s at the opposite end of the row, she asked her how she was doing.
“[Piro] said, ‘I can’t breathe,’” Yang said. She did not know the extent of the injury.
Zhu was sitting in the passenger seat at the front. “I thought I was dreaming,” she said. “I realized I wasn’t dreaming, then thought, so this is how I’m going to die. Then, please stop tumbling.”
According to Zhu, when Taylor was stuck in the van, she “started breaking down.”
“‘I was supposed to be taking care of you guys,’” Zhu quoted Taylor as saying.
According to Zhu, Taylor could not remember what went wrong in the moments before the crash.”All of us, we don’t blame her at all. What happened wasn’t anyone’s fault,” Zhu said. “Accidents happen.”
According to Yang, who has been in contact with Piro through e-mail and instant message, Piro also does not blame Taylor.
Before the trip, parents signed permission forms for Taylor to be the legal guardian and the driver. Because the meet was not part of the Public Schools Athletic League, and the trip was not expressly sponsored by the school, the Department of Education (DOE) legal and financial protections for school trips do not necessarily apply.
According to DOE Spokeswoman Margie Feinberg, Teitel “referred the incident to the [DOE] Special Commissioner of Investigations.”
A representative of the Commissioner declined to comment.
The Vermont State Police are also investigating the cause of the accident.
Assistant Principal (AP) Physical Education and Health Martha Singer, who deals with all Stuyvesant sports teams, said she was focusing on the health of the students and Taylor first. “When we hear more that they are in a better frame of mind, then we can deal with all the other issues,” she said.
The Stuyvesant administration asked all guidance counselors to arrive early the Monday morning after the accident.
That morning, the girls’ and boys’ track teams were called to a meeting first period with Teitel, AP Guidance Eleanor Archie, Singer and guidance counselors.
“We will be available if the students need us,” Archie said.
Singer, who visited the three girls in the hospital on the Tuesday after the accident, offered to bring items from Stuyvesant.
Senior and co-captain Eva Sadej said the team sent “three large cards and a lot of subcards and teddy bears, brownies, carrot cakes, inside jokes and things to make them smile.”
“They were really excited to get the goody bags,” Singer said.
Piro and Hsiao have access to cell phones and laptops, and have used them to communicate with friends back home. They also posted on the track team Web site, open only to members of the team, describing their situation. They sounded optimistic.
Members of the girls’ track team sent e-mails to the team and posted updates on the passengers’ conditions on the Stuyvesant track team Web site until Piro and Hsiao got access to computers.
A Facebook group created by students called “To the Stuyvesant Girls Track Team” had 585 members as of Thursday, January 17.
The PA informed parents via e-mail of the accident on Sunday.
Teitel sent an e-mail to parents on the Tuesday after the accident that said Piro’s parents “are hoping to transfer her to the Rusk Institute at [New York University] Medical Center.” This move was scheduled to happen on the weekend of Saturday, January 19.
In March 2006, another car accident left two Stuyvesant students dead. April Lao and Kevin Kwan were killed on their way to a swim meet when their minivan was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer.
Teitel advised against comparing the two incidents. “They’re just two unfortunate incidents that involved Stuyvesant students,” he said.
“The scale between this time and [the accident two years ago] is different,” Sadej said.
The girls’ racewalking team often attends non-PSAL meets. “The girls in the van were some of the top in the city,” said Yang, who placed first in Manhattan at Boroughs last year.
“In the PSAL league, they’re competing against each other, which is pointless,” Sadej said. As a result, said Sadej, trips to independent races are “a common thing that they do.”
Taylor was also planning to run in the meet. She has been training for the 2012 U.S. Olympics team. Because of her injuries, she cannot be overly active for the next six to eight weeks, a major portion of this year’s racewalking season.
According to Yang, who ran at the Martin Luther King Relays on Monday, January 21, the accident “hasn’t affected [the team’s] desire to compete.”
“That the six of us walked away nearly unharmed, it’s almost a miracle,” Zhu said. “It’s a memory we will always remember.”
As for those still recovering, “I hope all of them are strong,” she said. “Whatever the result, it’s probably going to be hard for everyone.”
“Valerie is a very strong, hardworking girl,” she said. “I hope she puts this in a positive light. I hope she will. I hope she will.”
