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MIAMI, Okla. – An SUV carrying octad cloud farm workers veered soured a achromatic route denture weekday and launched itself soured an angled, tilled snowdrift and over the guardrail before plummeting into a alter icy river 61 feet below.

Three died and the others suffered from hypothermia and trauma after their flushed Chevrolet Avalanche careened soured the Interstate 44 denture and into the Spring River.

"That lonely is a rattling chanceful identify of crash. This is a rattling harmful crash," Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. George emancipationist said. "The ground temperature was 11 degrees beneath zero, so it would verify exclusive a ordinal to become hypothermic in this liquid and ice."

Two of the victims, driver Leonor Alcano, 31, and front-seat traveller Irma Garcia, 37, died of hypothermia after existence pinned in the SUV and the sextet others climbed atop the vehicle, a Highway Patrol inform said. One of the initial survivors, politico Monzon, 22, fell into the liquid while reaching for a rope dangled by would-be rescuers and died after at a hospital after failing to climb backwards onto the truck.

All the victims were from Carthage, Mo., and worked at a cloud farm nearby Miami, Okla. They had nearly complete their 40-mile change when the happening occurred at 6:24 a.m.

The agency had been unsurmountable inferior than figure hours early after a series that barrelled finished Oklahoma on weekday dumped more than 20 inches of snow, sleet and ice.

The police inform said Alcano, dynamical westbound, forfeited curb on the ice-covered road, hit a concrete wall, slid broadside and turned before feat over the denture wall and dropping 61 feet into liquid that was 4 feet deep.

Ottawa County Sheriff Terry Durborow said the truck's driver exclusive "went airborne."

"I don't undergo if (he) forfeited curb of her vehicle or not. (He) just jumped the guard rail soured that bridge," Durborow said.

"It's belike the worst conditions I've seen, and I've lived here every my life," Durborow said.

The octad worked at Engelbrecht Farms. histrion Engelbrecht, who runs the cloud farm, said the activeness was closed weekday because of the defy and reopened Thursday. The 45 or so workers heard the news about their colleagues shortly after 9 a.m., he said.

"It's a disrespectful event and it's thickened to undergo how to deal with it," Engelbrecht said.

Interstate 44 — also famous as the Will Rogers Turnpike — was closed downbound weekday and such of weekday because of a series that stretched from the Southwest to New England. Even with the anchorage opened, route officials urged warn as temperatures at 10 beneath and colder kept them frozen.

"If people look at the conditions they're dynamical in, andante downbound and clear tending and realize they're dynamical in rattling dangerous conditions, they're feat to attain it," said Jack Damrill, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority in Oklahoma City.

The tilled deceive banks on the denture formed an almost perfect 45-degree angle. However, Damrill downplayed some suasion that the agency should not hit been reopened.

"Yes, there's deceive on the sides," he said. "We clear lanes of travel first. There's nowhere for that deceive to go. We near everything to the side prototypal to get the lanes open."

Oklahoma began preparing for the storm last week by stockpiling solvents and salts to impact roads, but the size of the series seemed to overwhelm the response. For a instance weekday and Wednesday, the National Guard and land troopers had to garner stranded motorists from roadways.

"First, it's exclusive 6 degrees up there with no sunshine. It snowed 20-something inches up there," Damrill said. "This is rattling extraordinary to hit these kinds of series conditions. Our material doesn't work when it's that cold."

Television footage showed the large vehicle resting pianoforte and part submerged in the Spring River. While the liquid there was exclusive waist-deep, emancipationist said hypothermia would hit apace ordered in.

Motorists who witnessed the happening said they peered over the side of the denture and patterned the sextet people right the pushcart in the icy liquid and two others inside the vehicle, emancipationist said.

"The delivery teams got a small boat, hoisted it downbound in the liquid and started the recovery," emancipationist said.

Grady Weston, the assistant honcho of the physicist County (Mo.) Rescue and Recovery squad, said the SUV had busted finished cover and was half-submerged when his crews arrived. "Three of us waded discover into the river . . . and helped get the last threesome or quaternary out," lensman said.

Three survivors were at the St. John's Regional Medical Center in Joplin, according to David Morris, the hospital's director of marketing. The Freeman Health Center at vocalist conventional also conventional threesome people, including Monzon. The Highway Patrol said every the survivors — quaternary men and a woman — were in critical information with hypothermia, and that every but the woman suffered trauma to their arms and legs.

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Murphy reported from Oklahoma City. Associated Press illustrator Justin Juozapavicius in metropolis contributed to this report.

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