Hazel Krauss, a 19-year-old UF student, died after a crash on West University Avenue late Saturday night. Gainesville police said a vehicle swerved to avoid another vehicle, then struck Krauss as she was crossing the street before the driver also hit the other car.
The crash happened around 11:30 p.m. Saturday on one of Gainesville’s busiest streets, and it quickly became the focus of a death investigation because the pedestrian was a young student with no warning before the impact. A nurse on the scene tried to help Krauss until emergency medical services arrived, and she was then taken to UF Health Shands Hospital, where she later died.
Police identified the driver’s maneuver as an attempt to avoid a collision, but the sequence left two separate impacts: the left side of the vehicle hit Krauss, and the right side hit the other vehicle. That detail matters because it shows this was not a single straight-ahead hit; it happened in the split second after the driver swerved, with the second vehicle caught in the same maneuver.
The crash also drew a wave of speculation online. Posts on YikYak tried to identify the driver, even as police said the initial investigation was still open and no arrests had been made in the crash itself. A separate arrest did come later, when Jack Bour was charged with driving under the influence after he drove around a police vehicle blocking traffic during the investigation, but that case was distinct from the fatal collision.
For Krauss’s family, classmates and anyone who crossed West University Avenue that night, the unanswered question is no longer how the collision happened. It is who will be held responsible for the death that followed.
