3 University of Wyoming swimmers killed in highway crash in Colorado

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Three members of the University of Wyoming swimming and diving team were killed in a highway crash in northern Colorado.

The crash happened Thursday afternoon on U.S. 287 about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the Wyoming-Colorado line between Laramie and Fort Collins, Colo.

The crash injured two other team members who were expected to survive, according to a University of Wyoming statement.

The crash happened when the driver of the Toyota RAV4 sport utility vehicle with four others inside swerved and went off the pavement, and the vehicle rolled over multiple times, the statement said.

Two people were ejected. The crash killed Charlie Clark, 19, a sophomore psychology major from Las Vegas; Luke Slabber, 21, a junior studying construction management from Cape Town, South Africa; and Carson Muir, 18, a freshman on the women’s team and an animal and veterinary sciences major from Birmingham, Alabama.

The two injured men, 20 and 21, were taken to hospitals, according to a Colorado State Patrol statement.

The SUV was headed south and apparently not on an official team trip, the patrol statement said.

The accident was being investigated.

“We are heartsick at the news of this terrible tragedy for our university, our state, our student-athlete community and, most importantly, the families and friends of these young people,” University of Wyoming President Ed Seidel said in the statement.

In 2001, a head-on crash with a drunken driver on the same highway killed eight members of the University of Wyoming cross-country team. Clint Haskins, also a University of Wyoming student, swerved into the lane in front of the northbound sport-utility vehicle.

Haskins was the only survivor of that crash 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of Laramie. He pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and was paroled after 9 1/2 years in prison.