By JAKE NISSE
Published: 15:56 BST, 23 April 2025 | Updated: 16:21 BST, 23 April 2025
A high school diving champion died in a car crash on Monday night which also took the lives of two others.
Maisey O'Donnell, 18, was on spring break in Florida with friends from Concord-Carlisle High School in Massachusetts when the accident occurred.
According to WCVB-TV, the crash happened on Monday night after the SUV O'Donnell and three others were in collided with a tractor-trailer which had performed a U-turn in the paved median of the highway.
The SUV then moved across the median and both eastbound lanes, according to the Florida Highway Patrol, before coming to a stop in the woods.
Jimmy McIntosh and Hannah Wasserman were pronounced dead at the scene before O'Donnell was also identified as a victim. A fourth victim remains in critical condition.
O'Donnell was two-time state diving champion in Massachusetts, and previously committed to continue her athletic career at Williams College.
Maisey O'Donnell, 18, had committed to diving at Williams College after high school
The SUV that O'Donnell and three others were in ended up in the woods after hitting a tractor-trailor
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'I am so excited to announce my verbal commitment to the admissions process at Williams College!,' she wrote in September, along with a picture of her in a Williams hoodie. 'Thank you so much to my family, friends, and coaches who helped me get to this point. Go Ephs!'
O'Donnell's diving coach, Joe Chirico, also called her death 'a tragedy.'
'The little kids looked up to her; the other divers looked up to her. It's a tragedy that somebody at the top of their game, going to the best academic school, one of the best divers in the nation, was cut so short.'
After confirming the deaths of McIntosh and Wasserman on Tuesday morning, Concord-Carlisle Regional School District Superintendent Dr. Laurie Hunter confirmed later in the day that O'Donnnell had died as well.
'...Maisey is in the organ donation program as her family hopes that it will give meaning to these meaningless tragedies,' Hunter said.
'We are very appreciative of the outpouring of love during what is absolutely heartbreaking. We also appreciate the wish to feel purposeful and not helpless. At this time, it is most appropriate that no action be taken to honor the students without the full consent of the families and appropriate support for so many young people facing unfathomable loss.'
The driver of the tractor is said to be uninjured.
More to follow
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