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June 28, 2009

Turnpike death toll hits 10

From AP, staff reports

The death toll from a chain-reaction collision, which began when a tractor-trailer slammed into cars stopped for a previous accident on the Will Rogers Turnpike in Northeast Oklahoma, climbed to 10 on Sunday.

Shelby Hayes, 35, of Frisco, Texas, died about 7 a.m. at Freeman Hospital in Joplin, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said. “There were family members with her this morning,” said Tina Freeman, a spokeswoman for Freeman Health System in Joplin.

Hayes had been pinned in the wreckage of her vehicle for about two hours after the accident Friday afternoon on Interstate 44 near the Missouri state line before she was freed by emergency crews. She was taken to the hospital in critical condition with head, internal and external injuries.

Hayes’ husband of 16 years, Randall Hayes, 38, and their son, Ethan Hayes, 7, were pinned in the vehicle for between eight and nine hours and were pronounced dead at the scene.

Cynthia Olson, 55, of Crossroads, Texas, who also was in the vehicle, died as well. Olson was Shelby Hayes’ mother.

“They were on their way to Sarcoxie, Mo., for Shelby’s great-grandfather’s funeral,” Wanda Hayes, Randall Hayes’ mother, said Sunday from Garland, Texas. “I heard about this about 1:30 a.m. from Garland police. They tracked me down, and I immediately went to Joplin to be with Shelby and make arrangements to get my boys home.

“I’m feeling very ... I don’t know how I feel right now. I’m angry at how the accident occurred.”

Barbara Mueth of Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, said Sunday that the condition of 12-year-old Andrea Reyes, of Phoenix, Ariz., was upgraded from critical to serious. Her parents, Ricardo Reyes, 39, and Ernestina Reyes, age unavailable, were killed.

The others who died were Oral Hooks, 69, Earlene Hooks, 63, Antonio Hooks, 42, and Dione Hooks, 41, all of Oklahoma City. Several people were injured in the crash.

The Hooks family, two parents and two sons, were headed to Missouri to visit Ronnie Hooks for what was supposed to be a celebration on Sunday.

“They were on their way to see me in St. Louis,” Ronnie Hooks said. ”I was to be ordained as an elder in the Church of God and Christ.”

Instead, Hooks and his surviving brothers are arranging to bury their loved ones. Hooks said his father, Oral, was semiretired, and his mother, Earlene, was a housewife. His brother Dione worked as a laborer, and Antonio was a veteran who was disabled, Ronnie Hooks said.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, identified as 76-year-old Donald Creed, of Willard, Mo., was admitted to Freeman Hospital West with head and other injuries, and he was released on Saturday, officials said.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol officials have said a routine criminal investigation is under way, and local prosecutors will decide if any charges are warranted after the probe is complete. They said blood was drawn from Creed, but there was no indication that alcohol was involved.

An initial Highway Patrol report said Creed’s vehicle was traveling at an unsafe speed for traffic conditions.

The crash happened at 1:16 p.m. Friday in the eastbound lane at mile marker 321. The Highway Patrol reported that traffic was at a standstill because of a minor wreck when the tractor-trailer allegedly failed to slow down and struck a car. The truck struck two more cars, setting off a chain reaction in which seven vehicles were damaged or destroyed. The tractor-trailer came to rest on top of three of the vehicles.

The eastbound lanes of the turnpike were closed for more than eight hours after the crash.

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