A SUDDEN DUST STORM NEAR CASA GRANDE, ARIZONA, Tuesday led to a massive chain-reaction collision in I-10 just south of Phoenix. Altogether, at least 22 vehicles were involved including several trucks. One of them burst into fire during the pileup and it spread to some of the others.
Casa Grande Dispatch / King
Sadly, three people were killed in the mayhem including two teenage siblings who were burned beyond recognition. The other fatality was a young man whose father was in the car behind him and rear-ended him into the wreck, killing him instantly. Edgar Ivan Medina Vargas of Iowa City, Iowa, was among those killed. He slowed suddenly because of the dust storm, and his pickup truck was struck from behind by his father’s large commercial truck, said Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves.
KPHO-TV Phoenix has this video report from the scene:
KTVK-TV reports:
A teenage brother and sister were on winter break from school and were just taking a drive to get some food. Fourteen-year-old Mark Eide, a high school freshman, and his 17-year-old sister Katie Eide were on their way to the Dairy Queen at Picacho Peak just south of Casa Grande when they were killed in a massive wreck on Interstate 10.Officer Bailer, with the Department of Public Safety, tells 3TV, “Their mother went looking for them. Our chaplain talked to her…heartbreaking day for the family.”
The Eides were well-known, active students. Katie was No. 6 on the high school volleyball team and Mark was also athletic. He ran cross country and track and played the tuba but it was his long blonde hair that earned him his nickname.
Destinee Galvez, a classmate, says, “I knew him as “sunshine” because his hair was like the sun so we knew him as “sunshine.”
KTVK-TV also filed this video report from the scene:
KPHO also provided this raw video taken from their helicopter:
