Three killed, including 2 U of M students, on Wisconsin interstate
At least two of three people killed early Thursday morning when a suspected drunken driver hit them as they tried to fix a flat tire on Interstate 39/90 near Madison, Wis., were University of Minnesota students, university officials said.
The students' names have not been released, but both were members of the cheerleading squad, University of Minnesota spokesman Dan Wolter said. A third person was killed in the incident, but it wasn't yet clear if that person was a student.
Two other people traveling with the three victims were not injured. One of them was also a member of the University of Minnesota Spirit Squad.
According to the Wisconsin State Patrol, the five people were traveling in a Chrysler Sebring heading south on I-39/90 just north of Madison when they got a flat tire. They stopped the car on the median shoulder of southbound I-39/90 in the Town of Burke.
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Three of the people were outside the car when a suspected drunken driver swerved and hit two of them at 2:39 a.m. The car was also hit, said Sgt. Eugene Wagner of the Wisconsin State Patrol.
According to a news release from the Wisconsin State Patrol, the three victims were a 23-year-old man from Puerto Rico, a 19-year-old man from Milwaukee and a 20-year-old woman from Milwaukee. The two men were dead at the scene, while the woman -- who had been inside the car at the time of impact -- died after being transported to University of Wisconsin Hospital.
The 31-year-old driver of the car that hit the stopped Sebring suffered non-life threatening injuries. Wagner said the crash is still under investigation but that alcohol was suspected and that his office would be forwarding its case to county prosecutors.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated, based on the account of a Wisconsin State Patrol official, that the three people killed in the crash were all outside the car at the time. This version updates to show one of the victims was inside the car.