Texas’s Austin New information about the fatal accident involving several cars in North Austin on Thursday night has been released by court documents.
There were 18 cars in the accident, including a semi-truck. Five people died and 11 were taken to the hospital.
Araya, 37, was arrested and charged with five counts of manslaughter while drunk and two counts of attack while drunk in connection with the crash.
What did March 13 bring?
The story of
A semi-truck was one of the 18 cars and 17 people who were involved in the crash on I-35 southbound in North Austin, near Parmer Lane and Howard Lane.
According to APD, the first call came in around 11:30 p.m. on March 13.
It was more than a tenth of a mile long, or about 500 feet.
Five people, two babies and a child, were declared dead at the scene, and eleven others were taken to nearby hospitals. Two people were taken to St. David’s Round Rock with injuries that could kill them.
TxDOT says that all lanes were open again around 1 p.m. on March 14. While workers cleaned up the scene, there were no tolls in the area.
Additionally, the accident took place in a construction zone with only one line of traffic instead of three.
Updates on the crash and the people who died
What we know
New information about the crash has been found in court documents related to the drunken manslaughter charge.
Following the accident, several witnesses told police that traffic was almost stopped when a yellow truck pulling an Amazon-branded trailer didn’t slow down and hit more than a dozen cars.
After hitting the first car, the truck tractor kept going for about a tenth of a mile, hitting other cars along the way. A person who saw the crash say they “heard a loud sound and then saw vehicles flying behind him.”
A box truck, two truck tractors, two semi-trailers, and thirteen passenger cars were among the 18 vehicles that were involved in the crash.
The truck tractor hit one of the cars from behind, and there were four people inside. Two adults and two children were declared dead at the scene. The damage to the car was so bad that Austin firefighters had to use special tools to get the bodies out.
A pickup truck with three people in it was also involved. The back of the truck was hit so hard that the bed hit the passenger area, almost causing the back seats to crash into the front ones. There was one dead person in the back seat on the left. She was 78 years old.
The truck driver was taken to a nearby trauma center with major injuries, such as broken ribs and spine, cuts and scrapes on the kidneys, and an internal head bleed.
The truck tractor fully destroyed another sedan that was carrying two adults. The driver was trapped and had to be freed by the fire department. He was taken to a nearby trauma center with major injuries, such as broken bones and internal bleeding in the head and chest.
