(from ESPN)
PARIS, Texas -- At least two Navarro College basketball players are dead and seven others, including a coach, are hospitalized early Tuesday after a team van was hit broadside by a tractor-trailer rig while returning from a game in Northeast Texas.
One person was critically injured in the wreck late Monday night on U.S. 271. Two of the injured were being transferred to Dallas hospitals for treatment of trauma.
Players were returning in two vans to Corsicana from Paris, where the team had played Paris Junior College earlier in the evening. The first van had made a U-turn on U.S. 271 just inside the city limits and the driver of the second was turning to follow when it was struck by the eastbound rig, said Paris Police Department spokesman Todd Varner.
"The second van made a U-turn in front of the 18-wheeler and was hit broadside," he said.
Justice of the Peace Ernie Sparks pronounced one player dead at the scene after the 9:50 p.m. accident and another at Paris Regional Medical Center at 11:50 p.m. The victims were not immediately identified.
Sparks said the van, designed to carry 15 passengers, was "busted to pieces."
"The ones who were in there, I don't know how they survived, but they crawled out," Sparks said. "All the windows were gone. It was lying on its side with the top side up."
One of the dead was believed to be a freshman.
"It's pretty bad," Navarro Athletic Director Roark Montgomery told the Corsicana Daily Sun in Tuesday's online edition. "A manager on the first bus called [football coach] Chuck Lawrence about 10 [p.m.] and said the van behind them had been hit by a semi."
Varner said one injured player was taken to Parkland Hospital in Dallas with possible serious injuries and another was sent to Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas with a possible serious leg injury.
The other victims were admitted to Paris Regional Medical Center. One person was in critical condition, two were in serious condition and two were in fair condition.
Firefighters and paramedics scrambled over the van to pull the victims from the wreckage, The Paris News reported Monday night.
Police Chief Karl Louis said the wrecked van had carried eight students and a driver. The second van was not involved in the accident. Louis said the people on that van were taken to the Paris Junior College student center where they could contact relatives.
Police remained on the scene early Tuesday investigating the crash.
PARIS, Texas -- At least two Navarro College basketball players are dead and seven others, including a coach, are hospitalized early Tuesday after a team van was hit broadside by a tractor-trailer rig while returning from a game in Northeast Texas.
One person was critically injured in the wreck late Monday night on U.S. 271. Two of the injured were being transferred to Dallas hospitals for treatment of trauma.
Players were returning in two vans to Corsicana from Paris, where the team had played Paris Junior College earlier in the evening. The first van had made a U-turn on U.S. 271 just inside the city limits and the driver of the second was turning to follow when it was struck by the eastbound rig, said Paris Police Department spokesman Todd Varner.
"The second van made a U-turn in front of the 18-wheeler and was hit broadside," he said.
Justice of the Peace Ernie Sparks pronounced one player dead at the scene after the 9:50 p.m. accident and another at Paris Regional Medical Center at 11:50 p.m. The victims were not immediately identified.
Sparks said the van, designed to carry 15 passengers, was "busted to pieces."
"The ones who were in there, I don't know how they survived, but they crawled out," Sparks said. "All the windows were gone. It was lying on its side with the top side up."
One of the dead was believed to be a freshman.
"It's pretty bad," Navarro Athletic Director Roark Montgomery told the Corsicana Daily Sun in Tuesday's online edition. "A manager on the first bus called [football coach] Chuck Lawrence about 10 [p.m.] and said the van behind them had been hit by a semi."
Varner said one injured player was taken to Parkland Hospital in Dallas with possible serious injuries and another was sent to Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas with a possible serious leg injury.
The other victims were admitted to Paris Regional Medical Center. One person was in critical condition, two were in serious condition and two were in fair condition.
Firefighters and paramedics scrambled over the van to pull the victims from the wreckage, The Paris News reported Monday night.
Police Chief Karl Louis said the wrecked van had carried eight students and a driver. The second van was not involved in the accident. Louis said the people on that van were taken to the Paris Junior College student center where they could contact relatives.
Police remained on the scene early Tuesday investigating the crash.
