Ten people, nine of which were children, died over the weekend in a multi-car crash that the Butler County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama has called the county’s worst accident ever, NBC News reports.
Butler County Coroner Wayne Garlock believes the incident, which was caused by the wet road conditions brought on by the tail end of Tropical Storm Claudette, started when more than a dozen vehicles headed northbound on I-65 on Saturday afternoon hydroplaned and crashed into one another, setting off a chain reaction where many of them were set ablaze.
Positioned either second or third in the pileup, a small van carrying girls, aged 4 to 17, from the Alabama Sheriff’s Youth Ranches burst into flames. Eight girls were killed in the crash. Candice Gulley, director of the ranch, which aims “to provide Christian, family-style residential homes for Alabama’s needy, neglected, or abused, school-age children,” was the lone survivor after a bystander managed to pull her from the wreckage. She remains hospitalized in severe yet stable condition.
Alabama Sheriff’s Youth Ranches CEO Michael Smith said the van was headed back to the ranch after a week-long stay at a nearby beach. “She’s going to survive her physical injuries,” Smith said of Gulley, who lost two of her children in the crash.
The other victims were a 29-year-old father and his 9-month-old baby in a separate vehicle. “Butler County has had one of the most terrible traffic accidents,” county sheriff Danny Bond commented, adding, “I believe is the worst ever in our county.”
