Two students were hit by a fast-moving van yesterday evening at 6:30 p.m. as they were crossing Boston Ave. at its intersection with College Ave.
Freshman Ian Engstrand and sophomore Minh Bui had just stepped onto the street when a blue Chevrolet Mark III van driving along Boston Ave. struck them, throwing them an estimated 20 feet forward. They were both coming from their "Programming Languages" class in Halligan Hall.
"I never actually saw the van that hit us. It just came through and knocked us over," Engstrand said.
Once the police, fire department, and ambulances arrived, the two students were rushed to the Boston Trauma Center at Beth Israel Hospital, said Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) Sergeant Doug Mazzola.
Both Engstrand and Bui returned home late last night in fair condition.
"I was told we were lucky. Another five miles an hour and instead of getting hit and thrown over the hood of the van, we would have gotten hit and thrown under the van," Engstrand said.
Murrett and fellow senior Dan White were at the Boston Ave./College Ave. intersection when the accident happened. White said that, according to a police officer, the van driver was an elderly man who has a heart condition.
The driver reportedly said that he "never saw them" and barely slowed down before striking the pair, according to one witness. After the collision, the driver stopped and identified himself to both TUPD and Medford Police, Mazzola said.
At this point, no charges have been filed against the driver, and the Medford Police Department is handling the case.
"Medford Police will do the investigation and reconstruct the accident," Mazzola said.
The Boston Ave./College Ave. intersection has been under scrutiny for safety concerns for several years. It was set as one of several key areas to be examined on a Tufts Community Union Senate sponsored "campus safety walk," in which senators go around campus with public safety officers looking for potentially dangerous areas. The walk is scheduled for sometime next week.
