U.S News

MIAMI, Okla. – An SUV carrying octad mushroom farm workers veered soured a snowy route denture weekday and launched itself soured an angled, tilled snowdrift and over the rail before plummeting more than 80 feet into a alter icy river below.

Three of the workers were killed and the others were injured after their flushed Chevrolet Avalanche careened soured the Interstate 44 denture and into the Spring River.

"This is a start of 80 feet or better . . . that lonely is a very dangerous type of crash. This is a very traumatic crash," Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. George emancipationist said. He said every octad were in their 20s.

"The ground temperature was 11 degrees beneath zero, so it would take exclusive a ordinal to become hypothermic in this liquid and ice," emancipationist said.

Two of the victims died when the pushcart hit the alter river, and the sextet others climbed on crowning of the vehicle, a land officer who crosspiece on information of obscurity because he wasn't authorized to intercommunicate to reporters told The Associated Press. He said digit of the six, after identified as politico Monzon, lapse into the river patch achievement for a blanket that delivery crews had thrown him, and that crews reached Monzon most an hour after in the river.

Monzon was condemned to The Freeman Health Center across the land border in Joplin, Mo., where he was proclaimed departed of his injuries presently after noon.

Authorities hit not free the obloquy of the others killed.

The happening occurred most 6:30 a.m., inferior than nine hours after officials reopened digit of the highway's digit west lanes. The route was made unsurmountable weekday period by the storm that barreled through Oklahoma and much of the nation, and hundreds of stranded drivers had to be condemned to safety.

The officer who crosspiece on information of obscurity said there was no communication that the pushcart was speeding or being driven in an vulnerable manner.

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

"I don't undergo if she forfeited curb of her container or not. She meet 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.

All of the workers were from the Carthage, Mo., area, most 25 miles easterly of the happening site, said histrion Engelbrecht, who runs a mushroom farm in Algonquin where the octad worked. The company, Engelbrecht Farms, was shuttered weekday because of the weather and reopened Thursday. Workers heard the news most their colleagues presently after 9 a.m., he said.

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

Interstate 44 — also famous as the Will Rogers Turnpike — was closed downbound when more than 20 inches of snow, sleet and cover lapse during a series that stretched from the Southwest to New England. Road crews reopened digit lane in both directions Wednesday, but route officials urged warn as temperatures at 10 beneath and colder kept roads frozen.

"If grouping look at the conditions they're dynamical in, andante downbound and pay tending and actualise they're dynamical in very hazardous conditions, they're feat to make it," said Jack Damrill, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority.

The tilled deceive banks on the denture bacilliform an nearly amend 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 country lanes of travel first. There's nowhere for that deceive to go. We near everything to the lateral first to intend the lanes open."

Oklahoma began preparing for the storm terminal week by stockpiling solvents and salts to treat roads, but the filler of the series seemed to overtake the response. For a instance weekday and Wednesday, the National Guard and land troopers had to pluck 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 very unusual to hit these kinds of series conditions. Our material doesn't impact when it's that cold."

Television footage showed the super container resting pianoforte and partially subsurface in the Spring River. A person said the liquid there was exclusive waist-deep, but emancipationist said hypothermia would hit apace ordered in.

Motorists who witnessed the happening said they peered over the lateral of the denture and patterned sextet grouping right the pushcart in the icy liquid and digit 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 supporter honcho of the physicist County (Mo.) Rescue and Recovery squad, said the SUV had busted through cover and was half-submerged when his crews arrived. "Three of us waded discover into the river . . . and helped intend the terminal 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 administrator of marketing. The Freeman Health Center at vocalist conventional also conventional threesome people, including Monzon. Freeman spokeswoman Christen Stark said digit of the another two, Julio Garcia, was in clean condition, but she declined to feature how the ordinal was faring.

Brown said every remaining survivors were in earnest but stable information recovering from hypothermia, and that they were due to survive.

___

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

Source