By Samantha Fricano
Two students from Aurora Central Catholic High School, Ally Bradford and Seth Egger, were killed while driving on a fog-covered road to a basketball game at their school on Tuesday, March 10.
Ally Bradford and Seth Egger are being remembered as goofy, adventurous, positive teens by their friends, and classmates.
¨She was always seemed like she was so happy and she was the funniest girl I knew,¨ Laney Cahill says about her friend Ally Bradford. ¨She was super social and was always telling stories.¨
Ally and Seth were driving on a fog-covered road along with their 4 friends Liam Doyle, Hannah Baxter, Cori Dahl, and driver Jared Friedrich. They were driving west on route 38 going around 50 mph when the crash occurred. The SUV ran a red light, due to the fog, at Dement road when they collided with the truck. Seth was pronounced dead on the scene, Ally was pronounced dead later at Rochelle community hospital. Jared survived with major injuries and Liam, Cori, and Hannah walked away with minor cuts and bruises.
What is Batavia doing to help? Our student council arranged t-shirt sales with the Aurora Central Catholic logo on them for the week of March 10. The t- shirts were $7 which students could purchase during lunch.
¨I found out about the accident the same way a lot of people did: through Twitter,¨ says Batavia representative for selling t-shirts Hannah Zepeda.¨I was shocked when I heard the news. I didn’t personally know Seth or Ally, but my family and many friends did. But even just knowing that kids around the same age as me, who lived only minutes away from me where gone so quickly, broke my heart.¨
The day after the accident, Aurora Central Catholic high school held a mass at the school seating hundreds of the students friends and family. Many students from Marmion, Rosary, and West Aurora attended the mass as well.
¨It was packed, A lot of people were sitting on the floor or standing by the wall because the bleachers were so full,¨ Says Rosary student Maggie Neff.
Aurora Central Catholic high school along with Marmion and Rosary had grief counselors present at their schools if the students needed to talk to someone.
¨So many people were crying, no one was focused so a lot of our quizzes and tests got pushed back,¨ says Rosary High school student Laney Cahill.
Twitter exploded with messages of sorrow from students from all different high schools.
¨You couldn’t scroll through twitter for more than two seconds without seeing the hashtag #prayforseth or #prayforally,¨ says Maggie Neff.
In total, Batavia has raised almost $400 and sold 54 shirts. The money from the t-shirt sales is going to The Egger and Bradford families to help pay for memorial funds, along with the hospital bills for Jared Freidrich.
¨It’s so reassuring to know that even though many people had no connection to the students at ACC they were still so eager to help in time of need,¨ says Hannah Zepeda.