3 BGSU students die in I-75 crash

Associated Press

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio

A wrong-way driver slammed head-on Friday into a car full of sorority sisters who were driving to an airport for a spring-break trip to the Dominican Republic, killing herself and three of the young women in the car she hit.

The car carrying the three Alpha Xi Delta members, age 19 to 21, and two other sorority sisters hit the wrong-way vehicle overnight on a rise in Interstate 75 south of Toledo, just miles from Bowling Green State University, which they all attended. The two survivors were seriously injured.

Sixteen sorority sisters were heading to the Detroit airport in several cars as they tried to make a 5:30 a.m. flight, a friend said. Another vehicle carrying five of the students narrowly avoided the wrong-way driver, Ohio state troopers said.

The wrong-way driver, Winifred D. Lein, 69, of Perrysburg, Ohio, was traveling alone and was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. Investigators are looking into why she was driving on the wrong side of the divided highway, and 911 and police radio traffic indicate she had been heading the wrong direction for at least seven miles.

Killed were Rebekah Blakkolb, 20, a junior from Aurora, Ohio; Christina Goyett, 19, a sophomore from Bay City, Mich.; and Sarah Hammond, 21, a junior from Yellow Springs, Ohio, the university said.