Officials work to identify five dead in a van. The driver of a semitrailer truck remains in critical condition.
By Associated Press
Published June 6, 2004
INDIAN LAKE ESTATES - An investigation into why a semitrailer truck collided with a van hauling a trailer on a busy two-lane in rural central Florida - killing all five people in the van and critically injuring the truck driver - continued Saturday.
The accident happened at 3:45 p.m. Friday on State Road 60 when the eastbound truck crossed the center line and smashed into the westbound van, said Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Larry Coggins.
The van and the cab of the truck then burst into flames. All five people in the Ford Econoline van were dead at the scene. The truck driver, Salvador De La Cruz, who was thrown from cab, is in critical condition at Orlando Regional Medical Center, FHP officials said early Saturday morning.
Earlier reports from FHP that De La Cruz had died were incorrect, officials said.
A hospital spokeswoman confirmed Saturday that De La Cruz's condition remained critical.
De La Cruz, 44, of Okeechobee, had dropped off a load of oranges at a processing plant just before the accident, Coggins said.
Witnesses reported seeing smoke from miles away.
Officials were still working to identify the five people killed in the van. The van's trailer had Tennessee plates and material found inside led police to think the van might have belonged to a church in a small town in Tennessee, Coggins said.
One witness initially said four horses also died in the crash, but the highway patrol said no animals were involved.
The road remained closed late Friday as workers cleared up debris. Traffic backed up for 15 miles in each direction on SR 60, which is two lanes over the remote Kissimmee River stretch but is four lanes elsewhere on its run from Tampa on the west coast to Vero Beach on the Atlantic Coast.
"This portion of 60 is one of the busiest east-west connectors in central Florida," Coggins said.
The nearest east-west routes are State Road 70, which runs through Okeechobee City about 50 miles to the south, and State Road 50, which runs through Kissimmee about 35 miles to the north.
Strong thunderstorms rolled through central Florida during the afternoon, but Coggins didn't know whether bad weather played a role in the crash.
"It had rained earlier but at the time of the collision it wasn't raining," he said. Indian Lake Estates is 50 miles south of Orlando.
