Three people were killed in a wrong-way crash in southern Indiana on Saturday night, according to Indiana State Police.
A mother and his young son were killed when a person driving the wrong way down an Indiana highway plowed into their car in a head-on collision. A woman who was riding in the front seat also died, but her young son is fighting for his life at a Kentucky hospital.
Authorities say that 911 calls began flooding in at approximately 9:15 p.m. about an SUV driving northbound in the southbound lanes of Interstate 65 near New Albany, a town near the Ohio River.
Approximately two minutes later, the vehicle veered west onto I-265, still driving against traffic in the eastbound lanes. Police then received calls that the vehicle had slammed into a passenger car near the 5.4 mile marker in Floyd County.
Officers responded to the scene and closed the highway for approximately three hours as an investigation was launched into the crash.
The driver of the SUV, identified as 31-year-old Taylor Barefoot of Louisville, Kentucky, was airlifted to a Louisville hospital with severe injuries.
The driver of the vehicle struck by the wrong way driver, identified as 21-year-old Taylor Cole of Marengo, IN, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. Leah Renee Onstott, 22, of Depauw, IN, was taken to University Hospital in Louisville, where she was pronounced dead.
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Cole’s young son was in the back seat of the vehicle, and was pronounced dead at Norton’s Children’s Hospital in Louisville.
Onstott’s son, who was also in the back seat of the car, was taken to Norton’s Children’s Hospital, where his condition is unknown.
Investigators believe that alcohol played a role in the crash, and are continuing to investigate.
Note: The post has been updated to indicate that Taylor Cole was the mother of the child in the back seat of the vehicle, not the father.
