5 victims who died in car crash near Top Golf identified

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The five crash victims. CREDIT: WINK News

Police have identified the five victims of a deadly single-car crash where the vehicle ended up submerged in a retention pond near Top Golf in Fort Myers.

Police said they found a total of two women and three men inside the car Monday morning.

Their names were released Tuesday morning: Eric Paul, 19, Jackson Eyre, 18, Amanda Ferguson, 18, Breanna Coleman, 18, and Jesus Salinas, 18.

“I went to school with Jackson. We both graduated this year, he would sit with me at lunch. He was so funny and Amanda too. As soon as you get there, she had a big old smile. So funny and bubbly she made the whole place light up,” said Lylah, a friend of the victims.

Paul, Eyre, Coleman and Ferguson recently graduated from East Lee County High, South Fort Myers High, Gateway High and Lehigh Senior High respectively.

The other four victims worked together at a Texas Roadhouse, near the accident scene, at the corner of Top Golf Way and Six Mile Cypress Parkway.

On Tuesday, at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant where the victims worked, they displayed a memorial to honor the victims and give the employees a space to grieve.

Wisner Henry worked with the victims.

“Like, he had dreams like he wanted. He wanted to become a firefighter I remember, and Jackson, he wanted to become a welder,” Henry said about the victims.

“I was in complete shock. I can’t even focus in class today. It was insane,” said Ibrahim Shaw, the victims’ friend and coworker.

In the midst of all the memories, countless people retraced the tire tracks of the teens’ car, leaving flowers at the scene of the crash, trying to comprehend how five young lives could have ended so soon and so tragically.

“For it to happen to people so close to us and kids this young who just graduated school, like their lives are barely just getting started, and to have it taken away this soon is really, really unfortunate,” Shaw said.

A memorial to the Texas Roadhouse employees outside the restaurant. Credit: WINK News.

Through their pain, friends said they take comfort in the memories of their friends and trying to keep their legacy alive.

“They loved everyone around them,” Shaw said. “They love their friends family, and I know now they’re looking down on us hoping that we do better for them and keep on pushing forward in life.”

Flowers left at the scene of the crash. Credit: WINK News

“You just never know you never know when someone or yourself can be ripped away from this world,” Jazlynn Rodriquez said, Eric’s girlfriend.

Stay tuned to WINKNews.com, WINK News App, streaming, and on air for any new developments on this story.

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