The Boone County Fire District’s Engine 201, Engine 901 and Squad 104 responded to a triple fatality accident involving a Nissan Maxima and a parked tractor trailer during the early morning hours of December 22, 2006.
Firefighters were dispatched to Interstate 70 and the Rocheport Exit at 0110 hrs for a reported extrication accident with two subjects pronounced dead on the scene while the third victim was found by officers as units were still enroute. When firefighters on E201, located in Rocheport, arrived they found a single vehicle that had collided with the rear end of a tractor trailer that was parked on the shoulder of the exit ramp. The vehicle was demolished and cut in half by the impact and three victims were dead on the scene. One victim was thrown nearly 100 feet from the vehicle while the other two victims remained pinned in the car.
Apparently the vehicle was involved in a high speed chase which began in the City of Columbia and continued for 10 miles west on Interstate 70 where the vehicle crashed. Officers on the scene reported that the chase had been called off just prior to the accident occurring.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol is reconstructing the accident scene with speed being one of the contributing factors in the wreck.
The Boone County Fire Protection District had 12 firefighters and three units on the scene. The driver of the tractor trailer, who was sleeping at the time of the crash, was uninjured. The names of the victims have not been released pending notification of next of kin.
