At least five people were killed and dozens injured on Thursday in a crash involving up to 100 vehicles on an icy Texas interstate highway, police said, as a winter storm dropped freezing rain, sleet and snow on parts of the US.
At the scene of the crash on Interstate 35 near Fort Worth, a tangle of semitrailers, cars and trucks had crashed into each other and had turned every which way, with some vehicles on top of others.
“The vehicles are just mangled,” said Matt Zavadsky, spokesman for MedStar, which provides the ambulance service for the area. “Multiple tow trucks are on scene. It’s going to take a lot to disentangle this wreck.”
Thirty-six people were taken to various hospitals from the crash, several with critical injuries, Zavadsky said.
Between 70 and 100 vehicles were part of the roughly mile-long wreckage in the southbound lanes of the highway, which were icy and slick due to overnight freezing rain, authorities said and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported, adding that a video taken by a passing motorist around 6.20am showed several vehicles, unable stop and smashing into each other with loud thuds.
Police set up a reunification center for family members at a community center.
“The roadway was so treacherous from the ice that several of the first responders were falling on the scene,” Zavadsky said.
He said his crews carry a sand and salt mixture in the ambulances, which they began using at the scene.
At one point, he said, one of the ambulances was hit, but it sustained only minor damage and the crew members were fine.
People who came to the location were trying to find loved ones and one man told the Star-Telegram his daughter hadn’t shown up for work and wasn’t answering her phone.
