Three OU meteorology students die in car crash Friday on way home from storm chasing

Jana Hayes
Oklahoman

Published 4:06 p.m. CT April 30, 2022 | Updated 6:54 p.m. CT April 30, 2022

A tight-knit community of weather lovers and storm chasers is grieving after the deaths of three University of Oklahoma meteorology students in a car crash late Friday while returning to Norman from storm chasing in Kansas. ... The loss of the students, Nicholas Nair, 20, of Denton, Texas; Gavin Short, 19, of Grayslake, Illinois; and Drake Brooks, 22, of Evansville, Indiana, prompted many to express their grief, but also to remember why they loved them.

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Leigh O'Neil, a geographic information science major at OU, said the three students were the "kindest, smartest people" she'd ever met. O'Neil said a selfie of the three mugging for the camera that they sent to their friends Friday is a perfect representation of how funny they were. ... "You couldn't be around them without laughing your ass off," she said.

Fatal collision occurred during rainstorm in northern Oklahoma

Nair, Short and Brooks were driving southbound on a wet Interstate 35 near Tonkawa when their SUV hydroplaned, left the roadway to the right and then came back onto the highway and stopped. The 2017 Volkswagen Tiguan was struck by a semi traveling in the same direction, according to Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

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The three were pronounced dead at the scene about 85 miles north of Oklahoma City. Tonkawa Fire Department officials and paramedics worked nearly five and a half hours to remove them from the wreckage. The semi truck driver was transported to a hospital in Blackwell but has since been released.

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ALERT | BREAKING

Three OU students killed Friday night in northern Oklahoma collision

By Max Bryan | Transcript News Editor 17 hrs ago

Three University of Oklahoma students were killed late Friday night when they reportedly collided with a semi truck in the rain just south of the Kansas border.

Nicholas Nair, 20, Gavin Short, 19, and Drake Brooks, 22, reportedly hydroplaned into the semi truck while traveling southbound on Interstate 35 in Kay County, between Wichita and Oklahoma City, at 11:23 p.m. Friday. They were pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol fatal crash summary. ... The driver of the semi truck was taken to an area hospital, where he was treated for his injuries from the crash, the summary states.

Nair, Short and Brooks were all listed on the university’s website as students in the university’s College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences.

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Unconfirmed reports that the three students were driving back from storm chasing at the time of the wreck circulated on social media Saturday. The Transcript has reached out to the university for verification of these reports.

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Max Bryan is The Transcript News Editor and covers criminal justice for the newspaper. He can be reached at mbryan@normantranscript.com or on Twitter at @MBryanOK.