Northwestern Student Killed in Texas Car Crash

A fifth-year Northwestern University student passed away Sunday due to injuries sustained in a car accident near Houston Friday morning.

John Thumel, of Libertyville, was a senior at the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

According to the Daily Northwestern, a car veered off the road in Brazoria County around 2:30 a.m. on Friday and struck a barricade, “flipping over multiple times before landing in a ditch.” No one else was in the car with Thumel. He was airlifted to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he died.

“He was such a bright, charismatic, fun and loving person and we are so fortunate to have had him in our lives,” wrote his mother, Laura Thumel, in an email to The Daily. “His 22 years on this earth were much too short but he lived his life to the fullest and we are proud of the person he was and all that he accomplished.”

According to Todd Adams, assistant vice president and dean of students, Thumel was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.

“The University extends our condolences to John’s family, friends, and fraternity brothers,” Adams wrote in an email to students, noting that the University’s Counseling and Psychological Services department is providing grief counseling for Thumel’s classmates. “The loss of any one member of our community affects us all, and it does so in different ways. Grieving is normal when experiencing loss, and our friends and colleagues can be helpful in lending an ear or giving their time, particularly when we let them know it is needed.”

“In times like this I am particularly thankful to be part of the Wildcat family and in a community where we support one another.”

Thumel was working this summer as an intern at the Dow Chemical Company in Freeport, Texas as part of McCormick’s Walter P. Murphy Cooperative Engineering Education Program.

“The death of any member of the Northwestern community impacts us all,” University spokesman Bob Rowley told The Daily. “Our kindest thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his family and friends at this time.”

A wake is Friday and funeral is Saturday, both in Libertyville.

more via the Daily Northwestern