Columbia University Holds Vigil For 3 Students Killed In Honduras
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The Columbia University community held a candlelight vigil Tuesday night for three students who were killed last week in a bus crash in Honduras.
Three students and a U.S. health care worker – all women – were killed on Wednesday of last week when the bus crashed while taking them to the airport to fly home after a volunteer mission helping poor Hondurans.
The students killed were 20-year-old Columbia sophomore Olivia Erhardt, 21-year-old Barnard junior Daniella Moffson and 45-year-old Abigail Flanagan, a nurse practitioner at Columbia University Medical Center and a student at the university's School of General Studies.
The university tweeted a photo of students holding candles and mourning in the frigid air on campus early Tuesday evening.
Tonight we came together in a candlelight vigil in honor of Olivia Erhardt, Abigail Flanagan and Daniella Moffson pic.twitter.com/28B5TmLVGw
— Columbia University (@Columbia) January 20, 2016
Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger said other Columbia students were injured in the accident. He said they were volunteering for the Columbia chapter of U.S.-based Global Brigades, which organizes international health and development missions.
The group had been volunteering for several days with doctors and pharmacists as part of a medical mission in San Juancito and Valle de Angeles.
They were on their way to the airport to return to the U.S. when, officials said, the bus veered off a road on a highway east of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. It then fell at least 260 feet into a ravine.
Columbia offered emotional support to students following the accident.
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