UPDATE: The Wayne County coroner released the names of the three camp workers killed in this morning's crash. Ana Rojas Lopez, 23; Diego Rivera Medrano, 22; and Ariel Jersam Galaviz Alvarez, 21, died after the van went into a drainage pond near Lake Como. All three are from Mexico.
PRESTON TOWNSHIP -- Police are investigating a deadly crash in Wayne County that killed three people, according to the Wayne County District Attorney's office.
Authorities tell Newswatch 16 a van drove into a drainage pond near Lake Como, near the intersection of Como Road and Stockport Turnpike, just before 1 a.m. Thursday.
Investigators say the van was going too fast to make the sharp turn on Stockport Road. The driver then crashed into a bridge, ending up in Lake Como
Two men and a woman, including the driver, died. Two others were hurt. One needed to be flown to Geisinger-CMC in Scranton.
The Wayne County district attorney believes the driver may have been drinking and speeding.
They were seasonal employees at Camp Shoshanim in Lakewood. The coroner's office said none of the victims was from the United States and the office is working to contact the families. Names of the victims have not been released.
Camp Shoshanim is less than two miles from the site of the crash. The front gate is locked, but the camp's owner, the Young Women's Hebrew Association, or YWHA, says the workers were preparing to help get Camp Shoshanim and Camp Nesher ready to open this summer.
Officials from the summer camp where the victims worked issued this statement:
"Today, the Camp Shoshanim and Camp Nesher community grieve the tragic loss of three staff who died in a motor vehicle accident early this morning. Two additional staff were also injured in the accident. The five individuals were support staff who were preparing Camp Shoshanim and Camp Nesher for the summer in advance of our camp counselors and additional staff arriving for orientation.
"We have been on site at the accident scene and at local hospitals throughout the early morning hours, and apparently the staff had used a camp van for personal reasons without authorization. We are working with the authorities to clarify details surrounding the accident, and we are focusing on contacting the families of the staff involved in this very sad event. Our thoughts and prayers are with them."
Donna Kenyon and her daughter Debra Coulter live two blocks from the site of the tragedy. Both say the fresh pavement on Como Road tempts people to drive too fast.
"They go to 50 to 60 miles per hour down it, and it's unsafe," said Coulter.
"Speeding's bad. They think it's a major raceway or something," Kenyon added.
The chief of the Northern Wayne Fire Company says rescue crews hooked up chains to a Jeep and turned the van upright but could not save the three people inside.
"The guys and girls in our department did everything they possibly could and were trained to do. There just wasn't enough time."
The coroner's office has not released the names of those who died in the crash, and that may take some time. The three victims are not American citizens and officials are trying to track down relatives in other nations, to let them know what happened.
