Six girls were killed during a car wreck in Tennessee on Sunday, but what caused the crash has not yet been made clear.
Among the children killed when the incident occurred on a highway in Robertson County was a one-year-old, NBC News reported.
When emergency crews arrived at the scene at approximately 2:00 a.m., they found a vehicle flipped upside down, according to the Robertson County Emergency Medical Services.
An image shows the area and first responders assessing the scene:
The girls’ ages ranged from one to 18. Officials believe they died after being ejected from the vehicle.
Aerial video footage shows the long stretch of highway and first responders’ vehicle lights flashing.
In the clip, a grey truck is seen with its front end smashed and what appeared to be a red vehicle flipped over in a grassy area. The video also shows a snarl of traffic:
During the incident, two adults were also hurt. One of them was a woman who was critically injured after apparently being ejected from the vehicle.
“The woman was transported by air ambulance to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. A man who said he had been in the vehicle also suffered minor injuries and was taken to the TriStar Skyline Trauma Center in Nashville,” the NBC report continued.
The victims’ names were not immediately made known, and it was unclear if they were related to each other.
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The driver of a second vehicle at the scene did not appear to be hurt. Now, the Tennessee Highway Patrol is looking into what took place.
The incident happened on I-24 near Pleasant View and Springfield, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Brent Dyer, who is chief of the county’s emergency management services office, said the agency “recognizes the incredible difficulty of this scene.”
Dyer also expressed deep sadness over losing the children.
“It’s one of the hardest things we’ll ever do, as anybody in emergency services, is to realize that you can’t do something for a child,” he commented.
It was not immediately known if the victims were wearing seat belts or proper restraints prior to the crash. Dyer also emphasized the importance of making sure young people are secure while riding in a vehicle.
“I beg people to put your children in the proper restraint devices and I beg everyone driving on the road to think about the outcome of impatience and the outcome of intolerance,” he stated.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s projections for traffic fatalities during 2022, the agency estimated that “31,785 people died in traffic crashes in the first nine months of the year.”
“This is a 0.2% decrease as compared to the 31,850 estimated fatalities during the same time in 2021,” the site read.