Nineteen-year-old students Elizabeth Conway Nass and Rose Louese Mayr were drinking atop a railroad bridge in Ellicott City, Maryland, late Monday night before returning to college for the new school year, according to reports. Their respective Twitter accounts appear to have since been deactivated or made private, but multiple news accounts and a Washington Post Storify relay their final messages.
"Drinking on top of the Ellicott City sign with @r0se_petals," Nass wrote. Mayr posted two photos from the bridge, including one with the caption "Levitating," which showed the girls' feet dangling above a deserted street.
Minutes later, the approaching Baltimore-bound train carrying a load of coal derailed. The two young women were found buried beneath piles of coal, according to reports, while railcars fell from the bridge to litter the ground below.
Might Mayr and Nass's tweets assist investigators looking to make sense of the tragic accident? "We are aware of the posts and are interested in anything that pertains to the accident or those involved," a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) spokesperson told Mashable in an email Wednesday.
NTSB investigators also said on Wednesday that the train was traveling within its authorized speed of 25 miles per hour before the crash, but that it was too early to speculate on what may have caused it to derail.