Durham graduate a victim of the ‘road of death’

Apr 28 2008 by Sam Wood, The Journal

A BRITISH student killed on Bolivia’s Road of Death had graduated from Durham University last year.

Tom Austin, 22, originally from West London, was on a cycling trip through the Andes with two friends as part of his gap year, when they were hit by a vehicle which tried to overtake them on a narrow mountain pass.

The Toyota Land Cruiser 4x4 hit the group before plunging off the road and rolling 300ft down a rocky embankment, killing eight of the 13 passengers inside.

Mr Austin’s travelling companions – James Marshall, 22, and Daniel Roberts, 23 – were injured in the accident last Thursday and were taken to hospital in the capital of Bolivia, La Paz.

The road east of La Paz winds dramatically down the face of the Andes, dropping 11,800ft in just 40miles. It was named by the Inter-American Development Bank as the most dangerous road in the world and has been dubbed the “road of death”.

Mr Austin is the second Durham University graduate to die while abroad this month. On April 12, Sarah Howard, 26, who graduated from Durham in 2003, was one of five Britons who died when a truck slammed into the side of their bus in Sancan, western Ecuador.