Muncie police officers and paramedics clustered together on Ball State University's soccer field as a medical helicopter took off, transporting a victim of a fatal traffic accident on Interstate 69 on Sunday.
Sgt. Linda Cook of the Muncie Police Department said officers closed University Avenue between Tillotson and Tally avenues to allow ambulances to transport accident victims to helicopters.
Sgt. Rod Russell of the Indiana State Police said five people died after a 16-passenger van swerved into the median at about 4:45 p.m. Sunday. The van rolled over, ejecting people from the vehicle, Russell said.
The accident killed five passengers and injured 11, Russell said. Three of the fatalities were children and two were adults. The van was the only vehicle involved in the accident, Russell said.
At the scene, the van lay on its side with its roof removed. Traffic in both directions was stopped as authorities used the highway as a landing zone for medical evacuation helicopters. Seven such helicopters were called to the scene, Bill Gosnell, director of the Delaware County Emergency Management Agency, said.
Russell said tire failure might have caused the van to swerve into the median.
Northbound lanes of I-69 did not reopen to traffic until 4 1/2 hours after the crash. Southbound lanes reopened about two hours after the crash.
Some of the victims hailed from an Amish community in the Fort Wayne area, about 50 miles northeast of the accident scene. Russell said authorities were trying to verify if some of the victims came from other Amish communities, which are spread across Indiana.
It was not clear at first how many people had been riding in the van as survivors gave conflicting stories of 15, 16 or even 17 passengers. That led police and other responders to search the area for additional injured people until it became clear all of the people in the van were accounted for.
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