Crashes on Arkansas roads Monday killed seven people and injured two more, authorities said.
A two-vehicle crash shortly after noon Monday near Corning killed six people, a Wednesday afternoon news release from Arkansas State Police states.
Four adults and two children were killed around 12:23 p.m. in the collision between a tractor-trailer truck and an SUV at the intersection of Arkansas 135 and U.S. 62, the release states.
A preliminary fatality report available Tuesday night did not identify the deceased, who were in a 2013 Buick, but it did show that the driver of the Peterbilt truck, Gerayne Poole, 82, of Piggott, was taken to a Memphis hospital for treatment. The news release stated his injuries were not thought to be life-threatening.
The driver of the Buick failed to yield at the intersection and pulled into the path of the truck, and the impact caused both vehicles to crash into a roadside ditch, where they caught fire, the report states. The people in the Buick were unable to escape the fiery crash.
The crash caused traffic to be rerouted for more than six hours, the release states.
Also Monday, Judy Ricketts, 82, of El Dorado, died around 3:30 p.m. when a 2005 Ford F-150 pickup crossed the centerline on Arkansas 7 near Smackover and struck the 2019 Honda Ridgeline that Ricketts was driving, a preliminary report from state police states.
The 17-year-old driver of the Ford was injured in the crash and taken to an area hospital for treatment. He is not named in the report because he is a minor.
A trooper investigating each of the two wrecks reported that the weather was clear and the road was dry at the time.