Six people were killed Tuesday, August 13, when a pickup truck crashed into a van carrying members of the Amish community in Gilford Township, Michigan, according to the Tuscola County Sheriff’s Office.
Police said they received a call at 4:44 p.m. about the crash. Investigators believe the pickup truck was driving south on Vassar Road and ran a stop sign, hitting the van as it traveled west on Highway M-138.
The van was carrying 10 Amish passengers, while the pickup had three people inside. The impact threw several passengers from both vehicles. Five of those killed were in the van, and one was in the pickup truck. Three other people were taken to the hospital.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/police-car-lights-053125-702b2b0952334a9e94b7af4a69c17a5f.jpg)
Authorities have not released the names of the victims. Local reports say the person who died in the pickup truck was 44 years old, while most of the Amish victims were in their 60s. Tuscola County Undersheriff Bob Baxter explained that identifying victims is harder in Amish communities because they often don’t carry IDs.
“Scenes like that are pretty chaotic at first,” Baxter said. “We’re still trying to figure out who was driving, where people were sitting, and their identities.”
The sheriff’s office asked people to keep the victims in their thoughts and reminded drivers to obey traffic laws.
Rita Hanby, who often drives Amish residents to places beyond the reach of their horse-drawn buggies, called the crash “a sad tragedy for this community.” She described the Amish as “some of the most generous, caring people you would ever meet.”
