Fatal crashes nationwide mar Memorial Day weekend

[May 26, 2009]  KEYESPORT (AP) -- Two vehicles collided on an Illinois highway on Sunday, killing four people and injuring five others in one of several fatal crashes nationwide during the Memorial Day weekend.

Clinton County Sheriff Mike Kreke said a Cadillac sport utility vehicle collided with a Pontiac west of Keyesport, about 50 miles east of St. Louis, just after midnight Saturday.

Bond County Coroner Tony Brooks said three of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene. They had been ejected from their vehicles and died of blunt trauma.

Toxicology tests have been performed, but the results were not immediately available.

In Minnesota, crashes over the weekend killed at least 11 people, making it the deadliest Memorial Day weekend in the state in recent memory.

Among those killed were four people in a minivan that police said was broadsided by a pickup truck Saturday night in Olmsted County in southeastern Minnesota. Two others in the minivan were critically injured, including a 2-year-old boy.

The State Patrol said alcohol was detected on the driver of the pickup truck, who was not injured.

In North Carolina, a fifth person injured in a three-vehicle crash on Friday died in a hospital a day later. State police said a minivan driven by a New York man was heading south on Interstate 77 Friday morning when it crossed the median and struck a car and a pickup truck.

The minivan's driver died, along with his wife and two children. Three other children in the minivan survived. The driver of the pickup truck died Saturday morning. His wife was critically injured, while the driver of the third car was treated and released.

In Connecticut, a man was charged with drunken driving after his pickup truck collided with a car carrying four people, killing a man and woman in their 20s, Watertown police said.

In Arkansas, two people died when their sport utility vehicle overturned Sunday in heavy rain about 10 miles northeast of Jonesboro, Craighead County dispatchers said.

In other accidents, police said a 14-year-old boy was missing in Jonesboro, Ark., after getting swept into a storm drain while playing in a flooded lot. Police planned to resume searching Monday.

[Associated Press]

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