Crash victim recalls terror after Mississippi road collapse

LUCEDALE, Miss. – A teen said she could perceive the terrifying sounds of different vehicles crashing astir — and connected apical of — the pickup motortruck wherever she and her parent were trapped aft the motortruck plunged into a dark, muddy pit aft a Mississippi road collapsed during torrential rainfall brought by Hurricane Ida.

“I saw a achromatic hole, past I blacked retired and I woke up and my ma was leaned implicit toward me. She was choking connected her humor and she couldn’t respire oregon anything,” 16-year-old Emily Williams of Wiggins, Mississippi, told WLOX-TV successful a video telephone from her infirmary room.

Williams managed to beryllium her 39-year-old mother, Amanda Williams, upright and halt her from choking. But, she said, she could inactive perceive the chaos extracurricular her family’s truck.

“I retrieve proceeding a car coming and past I heard a clang and I heard an motor going from a car due to the fact that it was connected apical of us,” Emily Williams said. “It didn’t truly determination america truly much, but past I heard the screeching of different car’s tires. I heard radical screaming and past it crashed.”

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Two radical were killed and 9 were injured precocious Monday erstwhile 7 vehicles plunged, 1 aft another, into a heavy spread wherever a conception of the two-lane Mississippi Highway 26 collapsed extracurricular Lucedale. The Mississippi Highway Patrol initially said 10 were injured, but aboriginal released a database of 9 names.

Amanda Williams besides remains hospitalized.

Layla Jamison of Lucedale, a 17-year-old elder astatine George County High, was successful the car that landed connected the Williams’ truck. Emily’s aunt, Shanna Bordelon, said Jamison's car landed without crushing the cab wherever Emily and Amanda sat.

Emily Williams said waiting successful the illness portion for assistance was terrifying.

“In each honestly, I was acceptable to springiness up,” she said. “I was like, ‘We’re not going to marque it retired of here. No 1 is going to find us. Everybody is conscionable going to support piling in.’”

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Emily’s begetter arrived, and she said erstwhile she heard him screaming from above, she knew she would beryllium rescued. She is recovering from a torn colon, a breached limb and different injuries. Still, she said: “I consciousness truthful lucky.”

Mississippi Highway Patrol Cpl. Cal Robertson said immoderate of the vehicles ended up stacked connected apical of each different arsenic they crashed into the abyss, which opened up successful an country without thoroughfare lights. Ida dumped arsenic overmuch arsenic 13 inches (33 centimeters) of rainfall arsenic it blew done Mississippi, the National Weather Service said.

State troopers, exigency workers and rescue teams responded to the clang tract astir 60 miles (95 kilometers) northeast of Biloxi, to find some the eastbound and westbound lanes collapsed. Robertson said the spread removed astir 50 to 60 feet (15 to 18 meters) of roadway, and was 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 meters) deep.

The vehicles were aboriginal lifted retired by a crane. A drone video published by the Sun Herald showed however a raised berm beneath the roadworthy washed away, leaving a red-clay scar that runs for hundreds of feet, from a cemetery connected 1 broadside into a wooded country connected the other.

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