Students crash on exit ramp
Three students, two from Trinity, involved; driver charged with intoxicated manslaughter
Ariel Barkhurst
Issue date: 4/24/09 Section: News
At 3:41 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, April 19, Trinity students Nathan Dameron and Patrick Johnson and Texas A & M student Andreas Uribe collided with a metal pole on the Jones Maltsberger exit ramp of US Highway 281. EMS transported Uribe to University Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 4:35 a.m., according to the San Antonio Police Department report, while Dameron was charged with intoxication manslaughter after being identified as the driver.
Johnson stated, according to the report, that "he, Uribe and Dameron had been drinking alcohol together before driving home."
Dameron was in jail Monday on $20,000 bond but had been released Wednesday, according to Dean of Students and Director of Residential Life David Tuttle.
Sunday night, Tuttle sent an e-mail to the entire student population announcing the accident, but he did not give the names of the students involved.
"There's a couple reasons for that," Tuttle said. "We were going to release the names, and we felt like some of their friends might not know yet, and so we didn't want them to get this e-mail saying, 'hey, your friend's in the hospital.'"
The incident has already impacted the larger Trinity community. Assistant Director of Counseling Services Richard Reams said that he has seen several students for distress related to the accident, and Head Men's Soccer Coach Paul McGinlay has scheduled meetings with a grief councilor for students he knows to be friends with the students in the accident.
Why drive drunk?
Reams said this type of accident is not uncommon because many people are willing to take the risk of driving drunk.
"The vast majority of people get away with drunk driving the vast majority of times," Reams said. "And so people play the odds, and most of the time they win, but sometimes they don't. I think everyone who drinks assumes they're going to be okay because they've been okay before. Every weekend, thousands of people in San Antonio drink and drive and think they're going to be okay."
Johnson stated, according to the report, that "he, Uribe and Dameron had been drinking alcohol together before driving home."
Dameron was in jail Monday on $20,000 bond but had been released Wednesday, according to Dean of Students and Director of Residential Life David Tuttle.
Sunday night, Tuttle sent an e-mail to the entire student population announcing the accident, but he did not give the names of the students involved.
"There's a couple reasons for that," Tuttle said. "We were going to release the names, and we felt like some of their friends might not know yet, and so we didn't want them to get this e-mail saying, 'hey, your friend's in the hospital.'"
The incident has already impacted the larger Trinity community. Assistant Director of Counseling Services Richard Reams said that he has seen several students for distress related to the accident, and Head Men's Soccer Coach Paul McGinlay has scheduled meetings with a grief councilor for students he knows to be friends with the students in the accident.
Why drive drunk?
Reams said this type of accident is not uncommon because many people are willing to take the risk of driving drunk.
"The vast majority of people get away with drunk driving the vast majority of times," Reams said. "And so people play the odds, and most of the time they win, but sometimes they don't. I think everyone who drinks assumes they're going to be okay because they've been okay before. Every weekend, thousands of people in San Antonio drink and drive and think they're going to be okay."
Be the first to comment on this story