Bristol, Ind. – A tractor-trailer slammed into traffic that had slowed for a construction project Thursday morning, starting a pileup that killed eight people and injured two others, police said.
Five people in a van were among the dead, said 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten of the Indiana State Police. Four of them were Amish residents of nearby LaGrange County, said Bristol Fire Chief William Dempster.
The crash started about 6:45 a.m. on a rainy stretch of the Indiana Toll Road. The westbound lanes were narrowing to one for bridge construction over the St. Joseph River about a mile and a half ahead, and traffic had come to a standstill in the right lane, merging slowly into the left, said state police Sgt. Trent Smith.
It wasn’t clear why the tractor-trailer driver did not slow down, Smith said. The semi rear-ended one vehicle, starting a chain reaction involving two other tractor-trailers and four other passenger vehicles, he said. He said warning signs had been posted along the highway up to 3 miles from the construction site.
Aside from the five killed in the van, two people were killed in a sport utility vehicle and one was killed driving a pickup truck, Smith said. No details about the injured were released.
LaGrange County has one of the country’s largest Amish populations, estimated at about 14,000.
