A Honda Accord carrying six members of a Trinidadian family died after their car crashed on U.S. 58 in Virginia Tuesday afternoon. Police say the Accord's driver had lost control, overcorrected, and crossed the median before hitting an oncoming industrial drill rig.
The rig's driver Bill Sanderlin told the Daily News, "I don't know what happened on their side, but they came across kind of at a high rate of speed and they got airborne. I actually saw the bottom of their car for a second there. That's how high off the ground they were." The Accord ended up lodged under the rig, and the car caught fire. Five of the passengers died instantly, and a child, rescued from the Accord by Sanderlin's passenger and another passing driver, died later of mass trauma.
Because of the fire, there was little identification found at the scene. But it turned out that five of the passengers are children of Pamela Ramharrack of the Bronx (the sixth passenger still hasn't been identified). The News reports that Ramharrack is sending dental records and photographs to Virginia authorities and that when she told her husband, who still lives in Trinidad, he had a heart attack. The identified victims were between 11 and 25 years old.
