A community is praying and mourning after a fiery crash in Wolcott left one teen dead and four others injured over the weekend. All of them have ties to the local high school.
“It’s just like crazy to think that this could actually happen.”
The shock remains for Lilly Byram as she visited this makeshift memorial on Spindle Hill Road in Wolcott. It’s where police say a car hit a tree and crashed, leaving one teenager dead and four others injured.
“I walked these halls with these people,” she said.
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Byram is a sophomore at Wolcott High School and was classmates with everyone in the car. The school district said two of the injured boys in the car were current students. She said the student body is taking the news hard.
“One of my friends posted saying, I don’t even want to get into a car anymore. Like these were my closest friends and it makes me want to sell my car,'” she said.
Wolcott police say the crash happened Saturday evening around 10 p.m. Wolcott Police Chief Edward Stephens said
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“The car was on fire. The whole front of the car was burning. A volunteer fireman showed up and grabbed a fire extinguisher because the trucks weren’t there yet,” he said.
He said officers helped pull one teenager out of the car and two teens were already out of the car when they arrived. Two teens who remained trapped before being removed by emergency crews were the 18-year-old driver who died, later identified by police as Alexander Dillon, and his 17-year-old brother who was sitting in the front seat. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
“People have their whole life in front of them. It’s tragic. Very, very tragic. I have no other way to describe it,” Chief Stephens said.
A tragedy that’s bringing people together in this close-knit community.
“They’ve been coming in here, putting up flowers. Now there’re some balloons and things there and all paying their respects,” Kevin Evon, of Wolcott, said.
Byram said the number of people, especially students stopping by, is a testament to Wolcott’s character.
“Even people that weren’t that close with them, I still think that it’s great that they will still come because you don’t realize how short things can change,” she said.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the Naugatuck Valley Collision Investigation Team.
