Five survive being thrown from truck
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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.
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