A University of Memphis student was killed last weekend while vacationing with friends in Tampa, Fla.
Kevin Wade Yeager, 25, a senior marketing management major, was driving a 2002 Chevrolet Trail Blazer with three friends in the vehicle.
The accident happened Friday about 3:10 a.m. Yeager was traveling Northbound on Independence Parkway and failed to negotiate a westbound turn on Memorial Highway.
The sport utility vehicle struck a guardrail, hit the wall beneath a bridge and flipped. Yeager and friend Mark Kolodziejski, the right rear passenger, were both ejected from the vehicle according to Tampa Police Department officials.
Yeager and Kolodziejski, 29, were pronounced dead at the scene. Neither had worn seatbelts, officials said.
Kolodziejski was a recent graduate of the University of Tennessee Dental School.
The other passengers, William Simmerman and Miles Johnson, were wearing seatbelts and sustained minor injuries, officials said.
Police officials determined speeding and alcohol were contributing factors to the accident.
“They were coming from a local nightclub, The Blue Martini,” said Katie Hughes, public information officer for the TPD. “They had been drinking, to what extent I could not say.
“We believe they got lost, probably took a wrong turn. It’s sad that they came down here to vacation, and it ended this way.”
Funeral services for Yeager were held Tuesday at Hope Presbyterian Church in Cordova.
He was a member of Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Southaven.
Yeager had been attending TheU of M for about a year, said his brother Keith Yeager.
They went to Tampa for Labor Day weekend, he was a very sociable guy.”
“He loved duck hunting and Alabama football,” he added. “He had been working for Enterprise Rental Car and was looking forward to getting a managerial position there after he graduated in December. I admired how hard of a worker he was,” he said.
“He was five hours short of a degree,” Yeager said, “Nobody in our family has ever graduated college. He was very excited about that.
“They were not wearing their seatbelts,” Yeager said of his brother and Kolodziejski “That’s why I think it happened.”
“The others were wearing theirs, and they’re still here,” he said.
According to a news release issued in August by the Tennessee Department of Safety, there were 11 fatal crashes resulting in 11 deaths during Labor Day weekend last year. That’s one death about every seven hours for three days. Fifty-five percent are alcohol related accidents, and 60 percent of vehicle occupants were not wearing seatbelts.
During the three-day weekend this year, highway patrol officers saturated the roadways attempting to prevent a repeat of last year.
The family of Yeager requested that all memorials be sent to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
