9 people killed on turnpike: Cars, trucks crash northeast of Miami
By Staff and Wire Reports
Published: 6/27/2009 2:23 AM
Last Modified: 6/27/2009 3:36 AM
MIAMI, Okla. — Nine people died Friday when a tractor-trailer slammed into a line of cars stopped by an earlier accident on a northeast Oklahoma turnpike, leaving twisted metal and debris strewn on the highway and stranding miles of traffic in the scorching heat.
Eastbound traffic was stopped about 1 p.m. on the Will Rogers Turnpike northeast of Miami because of an earlier crash when the big rig slammed into at least three cars, which then crashed into more vehicles, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. George Brown said.
"It looks like a war zone," he said. "There's mangled metal everywhere. There's debris, fluids, dead bodies."
Brown said the collisions had "quite possibly the largest death toll in a single crash" in state history.
Investigators don't think the truck driver tried to stop before the crash, which left eight adults and one child dead, Brown said. The speed limit on the turnpike is 75 mph.
A criminal investigation was being conducted, as is routine after a fatal accident, and blood was drawn from the truck driver, Brown said. There was no indication that alcohol was involved, he said.
The identities of the deceased were not released pending family notifications, he said.
Several other people were taken from the scene about 10 miles northeast of Miami to St. John's Regional Medical Center and Freeman Health Center in nearby Joplin, Mo., with the most critically injured taken by medical helicopter, OHP Capt. Scott Horton said.
At least two bodies remained in one crushed car into the evening while wrecker service workers raised a tractor-trailer rig off it, Brown said. Three wreckers — including one that is designed specifically for moving large trucks — worked to move the big rig.
Horton said one vehicle was hauling a load of sheep, but he had no information about the animals' condition.
The turnpike's eastbound lanes were closed from the Afton exit, U.S. 59/69, to the Missouri state line, for several hours, but the westbound lanes remained open.
Three more accidents happened in the eastbound lanes as cars slowed following the tractor-trailer wreck, and later a four-car crash occurred on the westbound side of the turnpike. None of the subsequent accidents involved fatalities.
The wreckage and emergency vehicles covered an estimated three-quarters of a mile of Interstate 44's eastbound lanes, but one lane was reopened about 8 p.m. as workers continued to investigate and clear the wreckage.
At one time traffic was backed up 14 miles.
Stalled traffic baked in 100-degree weather, and area residents and business people carried water to emergency workers and some stranded motorists. Some motorists got out of their vehicles and walked along the highway shoulder while they waited. Emergency officials brought a tanker truck to spray people in the heat.
Troopers with at least 20 years' experience said they couldn't remember any crash with as many fatalities, Brown said.
Tow truck driver Bob Garner of Miami, who has been a tow truck driver for 30 years, said that "this is the worst one I've ever worked."
Brown said the truck driver was taken to an area hospital, as was a 12-year-old girl who was pinned for a time in a wrecked vehicle before emergency workers could free her. He did not know their medical conditions.
Heather Collier, a spokeswoman for Freeman Health Center, said her hospital treated eight patients from the accident, but she said she could not disclose their medical conditions.
Among those involved in the crash was a 12-year-old Tulsa girl who was traveling with her grandparents and a friend to Branson, Mo., to celebrate her 13th birthday on Saturday.
The girl's father, Jason Smith of New Braunfels, Texas, told the Tulsa World by phone that his daughter, her friend and his father were not injured in the crash but that his mother was.
"My mother is still in the hospital. She was unconscious — she had head injuries" — but is doing better, Smith said.
Smith, who declined to identify his relatives by name, said his parents were taken to a Joplin, Mo., hospital by ambulance.
His daughter and her friend were taken to the hospital by a couple from Dallas who were driving behind his father's vehicle.
Smith said his father could see the tractor-trailer approaching in his rear-view mirror but had little time to react.
According to the couple from Dallas, Smith said, if his "father wouldn't have moved as quickly as he did, it would have been worse for them."
Smith said his father described the wreck as "the worst thing he had ever seen."
Smith said the couple from Dallas let his daughter use their cell phone to call him.
"It scared her," he said. "But she was OK."
Smith said he never got to say thank you to the couple from Dallas.
Lynne Duffield of Joplin was driving to Tulsa with her two sons when she came upon the crash scene.
Traffic in the westbound lanes was backed up about four miles at that time and had slowed to a crawl, she told the Tulsa World by phone.
The temperature gauge on her car registered 104 degrees, and "people were bringing coolers full of what I assume was water to the highway patrolmen," Duffield said.
Traci Jones of Ketchum was also driving in the westbound lanes.
"I saw the semi on top of what looked like an SUV," she told the World by phone, adding that a man was holding the hand of the car's passenger.
Cars were on the side of the road, and people were stopping to help, she said.
Jericho Malphrus, 17, was driving on the turnpike with his mother after touring a Bible college in Broken Arrow.
"Mainly what struck me was the amount of debris everywhere," Malphrus said. "There were clothes and snacks and debris. Someone's suitcase had busted open, and a little girl's clothes were everywhere."
His mother, Jodi Malphrus, said the accident happened about 30 car lengths ahead of her and her son.
"It was like somebody had dropped a bomb," she said. "It was horrific."
She said the first vehicle hit by the truck was an SUV, which was so mangled it could barely be identified as a vehicle.
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World staff writers Kevin Canfield and Manny Gamallo, World correspondents Brenda Luthy and Sheila Stogsdill, and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
By Staff and Wire Reports
Originally Posted by OU-HSV
