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An off-road truck plowed into a crowd and scattered "bodies everywhere" moments after sailing off a jump at a California race Saturday, killing eight people and leaving 12 injured, authorities and witnesses said.
The crash came shortly after the start of the 8 p.m. PT race called the California 200, said San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Bachman.
Bachman said eight people died and 12 were injured, several of them seriously. Seven ambulances and 10 emergency aircraft responded to the scene. Most of the injured were airlifted from the area to Loma Linda University Medical Center or St. Mary's Medical Center.
"There was dust everywhere, people screaming, people running," David Conklin, a photographer covering the event for off-road magazines, told The Associated Press.
Crash followed jump
Conklin said the Prerunner truck was among the first 20 off the line in the race, and had just gone over a jump known as "the rock pile" about three kilometres into the race.
He said he watched the vehicle sail through the air. Then he turned to watch for other vehicles when he heard the commotion caused by the crash.
"When I got up to the vehicle I could tell that several people were trapped. There were just bodies everywhere," he said. "One woman with a major head wound [was] lying in a pool of blood. Someone else was crushed beneath the car."
The truck came to a rest upside down with its oversized wheels pointing toward the sky.
Driver forced to flee
Officials said the driver wasn't hurt but had to flee the scene to escape angry spectators.
The 325-kilometre race is part of a series held in Soggy Dry Lake Bed near the city of Lucerne Valley in the Mojave Desert, 160 kilometres northeast of Los Angeles.
Tens of thousands of people attend the California 200, in which a variety of off-road vehicles take on jumps and other obstacles and reach speeds up to 160 km/h on the 80-kilometre off-road course. The race had been scheduled to last through the night.
The crowd was standing within three metres of the track with no guardrails separating them from the speeding vehicles.
so sad,,
b hunter
An off-road truck plowed into a crowd and scattered "bodies everywhere" moments after sailing off a jump at a California race Saturday, killing eight people and leaving 12 injured, authorities and witnesses said.
The crash came shortly after the start of the 8 p.m. PT race called the California 200, said San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Bachman.
Bachman said eight people died and 12 were injured, several of them seriously. Seven ambulances and 10 emergency aircraft responded to the scene. Most of the injured were airlifted from the area to Loma Linda University Medical Center or St. Mary's Medical Center.
"There was dust everywhere, people screaming, people running," David Conklin, a photographer covering the event for off-road magazines, told The Associated Press.
Crash followed jump
Conklin said the Prerunner truck was among the first 20 off the line in the race, and had just gone over a jump known as "the rock pile" about three kilometres into the race.
He said he watched the vehicle sail through the air. Then he turned to watch for other vehicles when he heard the commotion caused by the crash.
"When I got up to the vehicle I could tell that several people were trapped. There were just bodies everywhere," he said. "One woman with a major head wound [was] lying in a pool of blood. Someone else was crushed beneath the car."
The truck came to a rest upside down with its oversized wheels pointing toward the sky.
Driver forced to flee
Officials said the driver wasn't hurt but had to flee the scene to escape angry spectators.
The 325-kilometre race is part of a series held in Soggy Dry Lake Bed near the city of Lucerne Valley in the Mojave Desert, 160 kilometres northeast of Los Angeles.
Tens of thousands of people attend the California 200, in which a variety of off-road vehicles take on jumps and other obstacles and reach speeds up to 160 km/h on the 80-kilometre off-road course. The race had been scheduled to last through the night.
The crowd was standing within three metres of the track with no guardrails separating them from the speeding vehicles.
so sad,,
b hunter
