TWO JAMAICA-BORN former Florida International University (FIU) female soccer players were killed and several others injured when a van transporting them from Atlanta to Ft. Lauderdale was involved in a three-vehicle accident on the interstate highway on Sunday night.
Dead are Theresa Wint, 21, a Jamaican who was living in Miami; and Sasha Odenya, a 22-year-old Jamaica-born student who moved to Florida from Sweden.
Wint was also a former athletic trainer at FIU and both graduated earlier this year with a Bachelor's degree.
Reports are that a van transporting 15 members of the Florida Rockettes female football team was returning from a tournament in the Atlanta area when it was hit from behind by a U-haul truck. The van overturned and flipped at least seven times, throwing passengers out as it rolled.
The driver, also Jamaican, was pinned inside and was only pulled out seconds before the van exploded. The driver is the father of one of the team members, Georgia Witter, who was not seriously injured.
Mr. Witter underwent surgery for back injuries yesterday and is still in hospital.
Another passenger, Shemmie Stanley who was born in Honduras to Jamaican parents, is in hospital on life support.
