3/12/2006 Houston-- An open map found in the wreckage of a Toyota Corolla indicated that five University of Texas at Austin pre-med students may have passed a road they wanted to take just before making an abrupt U-turn into the path of a following truck says Missouri State Police. All five died when the 18-wheeler struck the Toyota broadside about 9pm on Thursday near the hamlet of Cardwell, Mo. about 2 miles of the Arkansas state line on U.S. 412.
The students were on their way to a pre-med honor society conference in St. Louis, had just passed an intersection that would have allowed them to turn onto Missouri 164 to get to Interstate 55- the main route to St. Louis. They were on-tenth of a mile from Missouri 164, a more direct route to the interstate. Investigators found an open map suggesting that they might have been turning around to get to the state highway. However, it is just an assumption says authorities.
Michael Woodward, 22, of Austin was driving a car owned by his fiancée, Fan Sun, 18, of Spring. The other passengers were Nikolaos Simeon, 20, of League City; his girlfriend Stephanie Wilson, of Houston; and Lan Nguyen, 21, of Houston. They were heading northeast on U.S. 412 on a straight, flat stretch of highway with farmland on both sides, said Highway Patrol dispatcher Greg Hill.
The driver of an 18-wheeler and his passenger were behind the Toyota at an unknown distance, towing a box trailer loaded with 40,000 pounds of plywood and traveling about 60mph says authorities. He did not know how fast the Toyota was moving, but shortly after passing the Missouri 164 intersection, it slowed and swerved tot he right, then turned left to make the U-turn.
The truck smashed into the driver's side of the Toyota, pushing it through a small drainage ditch on the left side of the road and into a muddy field says authorities. There was no indication the truck driver was speeding and he was not issued a ticket. There was no evidence of alcohol or drug use by him or the students. Previous accounts indicated that the students were not wearing seat belts, but Woodward had been wearing his authorities say.
The Toyota was so badly mangled that a special hydraulic cutting tool was used to cut away the top of the car and the right-front passenger door to remove the bodies.
Contributed by Harvey Rice.
