Northfield Community Mourning 3 Students Killed In Crash

NORTHFIELD, Minn. (WCCO) -- The entire community of Northfield is mourning the loss of three Carleton College students who died tragically when the SUV they were in skidded into opposing traffic at Highway 3 and County 47 Friday, slamming into an oncoming semi.

Two other students in the Toyota Runner are in the hospital Saturday morning with serious injuries. Eric Seiger, a spokesman for Carleton College, said it's a tragedy unlike anything the school has experienced.

"We have not experienced a tragedy of this proportion in terms of student deaths at Carleton in our history.  We're a very small and very tight knit campus, so these five young men that were involved in this accident, everyone knew them at some level, whether they were in class with them or a club team with them," Sieger said.

"As we do during these times we will come together for each other and not just in the immediate future but the long term, since this will be a long process, for many of our students, they have never dealt with a situation like this and to looks three at once and so tragically," Sieger said.

"They were on the Carleton Ultimate team and they finished third in the country the last two seasons against Division I competition, so against schools like Florida, and they are the most dominate team in the region regularly beating the University of Minnesota and Wisconsin," said Sieger.

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Adam, who works at the Holiday Station in Northfield, said this has rocked the community.

"We're a small town here and there is a real small town feeling here and you kind of know everybody and when something like this happens, everyone kind of feels it. We're still wrapped up in somewhat disbelief," he said.

The school is hosting a prayer service at 11 a.m. Saturday to honor the victims and allow the community to mourn the tragedy.