Amherst College student dies in Holyoke accident

October 13, 2008 11:10 AM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By John M. Guilfoil, Globe Correspondent

An Amherst College student died and three other students were injured in a rollover crash on I-91 northbound in Holyoke Sunday night, state police said.

Shortly before 10:30 p.m., a 1996 Honda Accord driven by Edward G. Prevatt, 21, of Trinidad, crashed into the median and rolled completely over, landing upright, police said.

A rear-seat passenger, Jordan A. Moore-Fields, of Oak Park, Ill., was critically injured. He was rushed to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, where he was pronounced dead.

Prevatt and two other passengers, Matthew C. Ghiden, 21, of Concord, N.H., and Christian J. Garris, 21, of New Bedford, were also taken to Baystate with non-life threatening injuries, police said.

Peter J. Rooney, Amherst College’s director of public affairs, said all four men were Amherst students.

The crash is under investigation by the State Police. I-91 northbound was closed between exits 15 and 16 for about three hours into Monday morning.

This was the second accident resulting in a death on Sunday in Holyoke. The I-91 crash occurred just hours after a 67-year-old limousine driver died of a heart attack after hitting a bicyclist on Rt. 5 in Holyoke around 2 p.m.. The cyclist is expected to be okay, Holyoke police said Sunday night.

John Guilfoil can be reached at jguilfoil@globe.com.