Car in Tenn. parade hits crowd, kills 4

[Dark Knight]

Investigators were trying to determine what caused a drag-racing car to lose control during a parade and careen into a crowd, killing four people and injuring up to 15 others.

The crash occurred Saturday night during an "exhibition burnout" at the Cars for Kids charity event in Selmer, located about 80 miles east of Memphis, according to a drag-racing organization. A burnout is when a driver spins a car's tires to make them heat up and smoke.

Witness Scott Henley said the vehicle started burning off its tires, then began to fishtail and slammed into a utility pole before spinning around into the audience.

Selmer Police Chief Neal Burks said, "bodies were flying into the air when it happened."

Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Mike Browning said at least eight people were taken to three hospitals. The fatalities were all adults, he said.

The identities of the victims and the driver, or the driver's condition, were not immediately known.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070617/ap_on_re_us/car_show_deaths&printer=1

 

[petra]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6760787.stm


Is this the same Selmer as the town Mary Winkler is from ????

 

[petra]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070617/ap_on_re_us/car_show_deaths

This article says six young adults-teens died, 5 yr old critical and at least 18 seriously injured.

What a tragedy. Thoughts to all involved.

 

[izzyB]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6760787.stm


Is this the same Selmer as the town Mary Winkler is from ????

mary was living there when she murdered her husband.

 

[Sassygerl]

My thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones......and to those injured.

BUT...did anyone see the video????? The car was racing down a highway...no guard rails...the crowds just lined up I mean that was a disaster just waiting to happen!!!!!! Just stupid!

 

[montana_16]

This is just awful and as other posters said , should never have been allowed to happen. Just too dangerous if anything went wrong, as it unfortunately did.

It looks like one family may have lost two daughters. I noticed two girls, one 15 and one (I think) 20 had the same last name. So damn sad.

 

[philamena]

I understand the event and I applaud raising money for the kids but this car drag racing down a people lined street was nuts.
My prayers to the families of those who were killed and or injured.

 

[Dark Knight]

The town recently was in the national spotlight when a woman killed her preacher husband with a shotgun in the parsonage where the family lived and fled with her three small children. Mary Winkler, 33, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in April and sentenced to three years in prison.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070618/ap_on_re_us/car_show_deaths