CHARLESTON, Mo. (AP) — Five people died and 15 people were injured in a series of chain-reaction collisions on a southeast Missouri interstate last week, according to a final report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Mississippi County Coroner Terry Parker had initially said a sixth person died in the collisions on Interstate 57 near Charleston, Missouri, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) south of St. Louis.
Parker said communication during the chaotic scene was difficult and one person his office thought had died did not, The Southeast Missourian reported.
The dead included two people from Texas, and one each from Missouri, North Carolina and Wisconsin, the patrol said.
The patrol’s report said the crashes began about 8 a.m. Thursday in the southbound lanes, when a tractor-trailer hit another tractor-trailer and caused a series of collisions.
Another collision in the northbound lanes killed 45-year-old Jose Hernandez, of Houston, whose truck hit a trailer that was disabled from a prior crash and then was hit by another tractor-trailer.
The four other people died after another chain-reaction collision involving 13 vehicles. William Ryan, 75, of Pevely, Missouri; Joshua Wiggins, 30, Candler, North Carolina; and Raina Jamerson, 22, of Kenosho, Wisconsin, died at the scene. Jesse Jimenez, 51, of Houston, died later at a Kentucky hospital.
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