Hayride collision critically injures family ‘catapulted’ into woods, MS officials say
A group of hayriders skidded off a Mississippi roadway after their trailer collided with a pickup truck Friday, leaving 10 people critically injured.
The crash occurred just after 7:30 p.m. when a truck rear-ended a trailer full of passengers being pulled by an all-terrain vehicle (ATV), WLBT reported, citing Pearl River County Emergency Management officials.
The injured were taken to various hospitals in critical condition, county emergency management director Danny Manley told McClatchy News. A 2-year-old and two other children were among those hurt.
The outing of friends and family took a dangerous turn when the trailer they were riding in was knocked off the roadway and into the woods, Manley said, which caused the severity of their injuries.
The “pick-up truck struck the hayride so hard, the actual trailer that everyone was on was found 30 feet away in the woods,” he said. “People were catapulted, if you will, off that trailer. So you have to consider all of them critical.”
Manley said some of the victims suffered head trauma and other serious injuries.
The accident comes not long after a drunken driver in Indiana slammed into a hay wagon carrying 25 people. The passengers suffered minor injuries and didn’t have to be hospitalized, McClatchy News reported.
One person was killed and at least 17 others were injured in a similar incident when their hayride overturned in rural Illinois last week, according to ABC 7.
McClatchy News on Monday reached out to Pearl River County Emergency Management for an update and was told many of the patients had been released, with two awaiting surgery.
Officials say the cause of the crash remains under investigation.