Yahoo Movies Woman Dies, Several Others Injured in 48-Car Pileup in Wisconsin: 'It All happened So Fast'
At least one person was killed and several others were injured following a massive 48-car pileup on a freeway in Wisconsin on Wednesday.
The Washington County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that white-out snow conditions and freezing temperatures caused 20 different crashes on Wednesday morning on Interstate 41, where the pile-up took place.
The most damage occurred on the interstate just south of Cedar Creek Road. There, 48 total vehicles were involved in the pileup, and 38 of them were damaged, authorities said.
A 37-year-old woman from Tennessee was killed in the pileup, according to CBS affiliate WDJT and ABC affiliate WISN.
Video footage taken by a driver's dash camera and obtained by WISN captured the moment a semi-truck hit a snowplow, after which it overturned and rolled into a ditch.
"Visibility cut and then all the sudden I was seeing the semi in front of me and then you could see stuff in the ditch on the left and the ditch on the right and then just the unfolding of the semi hitting the dump truck in front of me," William Van Aacken, whose dash camera captured the video, told the news station.
Six others were treated for injuries at local medical facilities, while another 26 were evaluated and treated at the scene, the sheriff's office said.
WISN
About 50 motorists were stranded as a result of the crashes but were transported by Rite Way Bus Service Inc. to Pioneer Travel Plaza, which acted as a reunification and investigative point for the incident, according to the sheriff's office.
A truck driver involved in pileup, Paul Wolf, spoke to WISN about the incident.
"Everything just, it all happened so fast," said Wolf, who was experiencing some soreness in the wake of the pileup. "I was slowing way down and all that, but you couldn't see nothing. It was just a complete whiteout."
Interstate 41 was closed for hours for the emergency clean up, which included wreckers removing trucks from ditches and moving damaged cars onto flatbeds, per WDJT.
The Wisconsin State Patrol is continuing to investigate the crashes.
