OU President Joseph Harroz issued a letter to the OU community Sunday after three meteorology students died in a car accident Friday evening.
Nicholas Nair, 20, Gavin Short, 19, and Drake Brooks, 22, hydroplaned their 2017 Volkswagen Tiguan around 11 p.m. Friday near Tonkawa on Interstate 35. After parking on the side of the road, they were struck by a semi-truck. The trio was returning from storm chasing near the Oklahoma-Kansas border after a powerful tornado touched down in Andover, Kansas.
Harroz acknowledged the students’ deaths in an email sent Sunday morning.
“This terrible news hits hardest, of course, for those who knew Drake, Nic and Gavin best — their families, friends, faculty, staff and others important in their lives,” Harroz wrote. “Since their untimely deaths, there has been a tremendous outpouring of love and affection for each of them, not only at OU, but beyond.”
In the letter, Harroz praised each of the students as “united in a shared passion” to help warn others of dangerous situations through their meteorology work.
“Their pursuit of that calling is admirable and serves as an inspiration to us all,” Harroz wrote. “There are few words and little comfort we can offer their families and loved ones in a time of deep sadness like this. But what we can do is honor them and commit ourselves to the principles they lived each day. We are immensely grateful for their lives and the impact each of them had.”
The email also provided links to OU counseling services across the Norman, Tulsa and Health Sciences Center campuses for those in need.
This story was updated at 8:45 p.m. April 26 to clarify details of the crash.
