Clinton, MS : Two Central Hinds Academy students killed in crash on Interstate 20 in Clinton on Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Two Central Hinds Academy students were killed in an accident on Interstate 20 in Clinton Tuesday.

The Mississippi Highway Patrol said the wreck was reported around 2 p.m. An 18-wheeler slowed because of road construction near the Norrell Road exit. The students were riding in a pickup behind the 18-wheeler. The students' pickup was rear-ended by a second 18-wheeler and crushed between the two, according to MHP.

Tanner Gardo, 18, and Austin Thomas, 16, , were pronounced dead at the scene. The drivers of the 18-wheelers suffered non-life-threatening injures.

Thomas was in his junior year at CHA, and Gardo, a senior, was to set graduate Monday.

Central Hinds Headmaster Bobby Allen said the teens were both good students and inseparable friends. They collected scrap metal and would sell it for cash. Thomas would rebuild 4-wheelers and cars in his free time, and had one he was working on that he was going to drive himself.

"They were both always a pleasure to be around," he said. "They were both really good students who realized the value of an education, and any task they were given, they tried to do 100 percent correctly."

Allen said counselors, youth ministers and Fellowship of Christian Athletes staff were on campus Wednesday to help students deal with their grief.

"The highway patrolman who worked the wreck also came out and explained to the students what went wrong, that they were doing nothing wrong, and they were sitting still when they were hit," Allen said.

A GoFundMe page has been started to raise money for the families. Landon Corkren, who said he was a neighbor of Thomas for more than 16 years, wrote on the crowdsourcing site that Thomas was "an amazing young man and friend. He was a very Godly man and you could see that in the way lived his life." In the post, Corkren recalled how Thomas came over to kickstart Corkren's bike due to the latter's "bad ankle."

Corkren said the last time he spoke with Thomas was Saturday, when the two had their "routine '4-wheeler' talk."

"There are two things in this life you can't control, when you're born and when you leave. We saw that today as two exceptionl young men lost their lives..." wrote Corkren.

"Please as you go forward, keep these two families in your thoughts and prayers."

Allen said that the whole community is reeling from the loss, especially the students who have never experienced an event like this before.

"They never wrote a manual about how to handle a situation like this, there are no rules. We're lucky to be at a private school where we can openly pray and read the Bible, and there's been a lot of that going on today," he said.

Source :
Central Hinds Academy: Students killed in crash 'inseparable'