OAK HARBOR, Ohio – A sport utility vehicle carrying children home from an amusement park collided with a tractor-trailer and plunged into a creek, killing two adults and four children.
Two large yellow SpongeBob SquarePants prizes floated in the waist-deep water after the crash late Monday. The Cadillac Escalade was "disintegrated" and landed upside down in the creek after breaking through a guardrail, Highway Patrol trooper Chris Capizzi said.
The six victims — all from the Detroit area — were in the Escalade. A teenage girl also in the vehicle was the only survivor, and she was in critical condition Tuesday.
The accident occurred about a mile from the Lake Erie shoreline on state Route 2, which is heavily traveled in the summer and is a shortcut between Cedar Point (search) amusement park and Michigan.
The amusement park in Sandusky is a popular destination with people in the Detroit area. The victims were about 30 miles from Cedar Point and approaching suburban Toledo when they were struck by the truck.
Interviews and evidence show that a westbound Chevrolet Blazer crossed the center line and struck the eastbound tractor-trailer. That caused the tractor-trailer to veer into the other lane and hit the Escalade and a car, the highway patrol said.
The truck driver and four people who were in the two other vehicles involved in the crash were not seriously injured.
No one has been charged in the accident.
It was not known whether any of the victims drowned in the creek or whether they were all killed on impact.
A tire, glass and bits of metal were scattered across the elevated road and the small bridge that crosses the creek in a marshy area along the lake.
Killed were the driver of the Escalade, Darryl K. Scott, 44; his friend Shannon Scott, 24; and his niece Ariel Scott, 12.
The other children killed were sisters Alexis, 9, and Alecia Howard, 7, and another unnamed passenger.
The injured teen, 13-year-old Brandi Scott, suffered spinal cord injuries (search). The driver of the vehicle was her father.
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