Five killed, five hurt when van collides with truck in Arkansas

DERMOTT, Ark. — Five people were killed and five others injured after a large truck collided with a van belonging to a school serving disabled adults in southeast Arkansas, authorities said.

The crash happened Monday afternoon on U.S. 65 when the 15-passenger van failed to yield when crossing U.S. 65 in rural Chicot County and collided with a truck hauling cooking oil, Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said Tuesday.

Sadler said the van belonged to C.B. King Memorial School, a nonprofit that provides services in several southeastern Arkansas counties to people with developmental delays or disabilities, according to its website.

“Our C B King Family is hurting tonight,” the school’s director of programs, Lora Medina, said in a statement Monday. “We don’t have the words right now to express our pain. The Adult Center in Arkansas City will be closed for now as we process what has happened.”

Killed in the crash were Regina Jackson, 65; Terry King, 56; Tommy Figures, 50; and Brayshawn Ranson, 19, all of Dermott; and Geraldine Prewitt, 73, of McGehee, state police said. The drivers of both vehicles were injured, along with three other passengers in the van, police said.

State police will assign a reconstruction team to determine what led to the collision, Sadler said.

“At this juncture in the investigation, it appears that the driver of the van did not see the oncoming traffic,” Sadler said Tuesday morning.

The NTSB also said it would investigate.

The crash occurred south of Dermott, about 100 miles southeast of Little Rock in the Mississippi River Delta region.