PUCMM engineering student Roberto Eduardo Mata died in New York when on a student trip with fellow students from the Pontificia Universidad Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) and Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC). He was riding in a taxi van that crashed into a utility poll in Cortlandville, New York. Reports are that the taxi driver also died.
Also seriously injured in the crash, Dominican university student Gianmary Cienfuegos reportedly woke up from the coma after suffering severe head injuries as a result of the crash. In addition, five other their classmates were injured: Víctor Méndez, Ernesto Gracia, Sabrina Schiavi, Laura Duverge, Gianmary Cienfuegos, Henry Fuentes and Ricardo Rosa.
The students were returning to the Tompkins Cortland campus at around 2am.
The Cortland County Sheriff’s Office say the van, which was carrying eight passengers, was traveling west on Bennie Road when it left the road and struck a utility pole just before 3 am.
The van’s driver and one of the passengers were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities say, while the rest of the passengers were transported to a hospital.
Of those transported to the hospital, officials note one was airlifted by helicopter and two were transported by ambulance to SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. The four remaining passengers were taken to Cortland Regional Medical Center.
The students were on an exchange program that also included students from the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) in an exchange (Global Connections program) with Tompkins Cortland Community College.
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Diario Libre
WBNG News
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El Nacional
21 July 2017
