Five survive being thrown from truck
   
   
 
   
 
Investigators believe a blown rear tire may have caused a Ford Ranger pickup to crash Monday morning on Interstate 64 in Charleston, spilling people across the highway but causing no deaths.
Charleston Police Lt. Jerry Hill said the pickup was traveling westbound at about 60 mph between the Oakwood and Montrose exits when the driver lost control. A 3-year-old child buckled into a child safety seat was the only person strapped into a safety device, he said.Two adults in the front and three riding in the rear were all upended onto the concrete pavement and received “non-life-threatening injuries,” Hill said. He did not immediately have the names of the victims, but all were transported to Charleston Area Medical Center hospitals, said Tim Belcher, assistant Charleston police chief.
The accident occurred about 11:45 a.m., Belcher said. “I think one of the rear tires had blown out and caused the truck to flip,” he said.Hill said investigators are still working on the crash and have yet to say that was definitely the cause.
Belcher said South Charleston and Kanawha County officials helped at the scene and there were some “fairly serious injuries.”
“They were probably very fortunate that someone wasn’t killed outright,” he said.
Hill said there was a chance several of the crash victims could lose fingers, but otherwise most had “a lot of road rash, bumps and bruises.”“From all indications, nobody was going to die and that’s a miracle,” the lieutenant said.
Westbound traffic on the interstate was blocked for slightly more than an hour, he said.