A school community mourning four teenagers who were found dead in an up-side-down car on a camping trip in Wales was already reeling from two other tragedies, it has been revealed.
A wide-scale search for Jevon Hirst, Harvey Owen, Wilf Henderson and Hugo Morris started on Monday afternoon when the group failed to return home from an overnight camping trip to the Snowdonia area.
The boys were on Tuesday found dead in a car that had veered off the road in Garreg, about a 10-minute drive from where they had planned to camp.
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Their Ford Fiesta was partially submerged in water, police said.
The bodies of the four teenagers, who were reportedly aged 16 to 18, were recovered from inside.
The teens all attended Shrewsbury College, which has offered support to students and staff.
“We would like to offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the four young men who tragically died in the suspected traffic accident,” the school said.
“This news is truly heartbreaking, and our thoughts go out to those affected by this tragic news.”
It has since been revealed the grieving school community had already been devastated by the recent deaths of two other students, who died just weeks earlier.
Student Ben Worrall, 17, died in motorbike crash in the early hours of October 1, while Alfie McCormick, 18, took his own life on September 29.
“The loss of two members of our community in such a short period of time is devastating for us all,” Shrewsbury Colleges Group head teacher James Staniforth said in a letter last month.
“We are working directly with students and staff who are the most affected and have put in place a range of support measures for all our community.
“Students and staff have been encouraged to look out for each other and given guidance on who to speak to if they require support or if they are concerned about a friend or colleague.”
Local vicar Reverend Charlotte Gompertz said the deaths were “impacting everyone” in the community.
“There were two deaths very recently, a motorbike accident and a suicide,” she told The Sun.
“This is a close-knit community and many of the young people have been at school together since they were four years old.
“It’s one of those places where everybody knows everybody.”
Boys ‘so unlucky’
Police say inquiries are continuing into the recent Garreg crash, with a local farmer labelling the incident “so unlucky”.
The farmer told The Guardian the car left a narrow, winding road on a leaf-covered bend and became stuck upside-down in a ditch that had just filled with water.
“There were no tracks on the road, nothing to be seen,” Rhys Williams said.
“They were so unlucky, the way the car went in. It’s gone into the ditch, low into the ditch.”
Williams said the teenagers were found by the crew of a recycling truck, who only noticed them because the driver and binman were sitting higher up.
“It’s a small car. If they had hit a tree or a fence, they would gone in another way,” he said.
“I went past and didn’t see anything. Two buses would have gone past before 10am and not seen anything.”
Williams said the weather had been “brutal” over the weekend and the ditch had filled up with water.
Superintendent Owain Llewellyn earlier said while the search for the boys had ended, there would be an ongoing inquiry to formally identify the teens and to “understand what has led to this tragic incident”.
“Our thoughts are with (the families) at this desperate time,” he said.
