CAMDEN, Ohio (WDTN) – Doctors have placed the driver of the semi-truck involved in Tuesday’s fatal Preble County crash in a medically induced coma. Another driver who survived the incident says he’s still coming to grips with what happened.
A family of three died in the crash.
Kevin Murray, however, managed to walk away.
“I tried to dive in the passenger seat,” Murray said. “When I got hit, I know I flipped and when I come down, I said, ‘You’re okay, get down, go deep, go deep’ – and then boom, I got hit again. Then it got real quiet.”
Melissa Hudson, her husband Schon, and their three-year-old daughter Emerie are dead, after the jeep they were riding in was struck by a semi-truck.
Friends say Melissa was 16 weeks pregnant with the couple’s baby boy.
Kevin Murray said he remembers seeing the family’s Jeep go airborne, and the wheels of the jeep come flying towards his van.
“I sat there like, oh my God,” Murray said. ” And then when it hit. It was like half airborne… I remember her side wheels coming right at me – and smashed into me.”
Murray said the impact sent him crashing into the car behind him. He said the semi also struck his car before careening to the left.
It took first responders hours to extract the driver of the semi-truck from the wreckage.
Doctors say he’s in critical condition.
Chief Matt Spurlock of the Camden Police Department said: “The hospital was going to put him in a medically induced coma for three days and then evaluate him after that.”
Spurlock say evidence shows the semi ran a red light. He said speed is also considered a factor in the crash.
Investigators are now waiting on a report on the truck’s black box.
“With the semi-truck’s black box, it can give us information on approximate speed, the breaking, the breaking patterns – the pressure, when it was applied. Things of that nature,” Spurlock said.
Police say they have not yet spoken to the driver of the semi-truck and no charges have been filed.
A candlelight vigil will be held for the Hudson’s on Sunday at the Camden Primary football field.