Three people dead after two-vehicle crash on Kansas highway, state trooper says

State troopers are investigating a triple fatal accident on a southeast Kansas highway that claimed the lives of three women in their 80s.

Emergency crews were called to a crash at around 8:25 a.m. Tuesday near the north junction of U.S. 75 and U.S. 166 in Montgomery County, Trooper Rick Wingate of the Kansas Highway Patrol said in a Facebook post. The collision involved two vehicles on U.S. 75 about 3 miles north of Caney.

Three people were pronounced dead at the scene, Wingate said, and a fourth person was taken to an Oklahoma hospital.

A highway patrol crash report states that a 2004 Ford Expedition was northbound on the highway as a 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee was southbound. The Ford SUV crossed the center line, troopers wrote in the report, and the Jeep “made an avoidance maneuver onto the left shoulder.” The SUV then struck the Jeep head-on.

The three women who died were the driver and passengers in the Jeep. They were identified as Patricia Chalfant, 85, and Wilma Rowden, 82, both of Neodesha, and Mary Compton, 85, of Fredonia.

The SUV’s driver was taken to St. John’s Hospital in Tulsa with suspected serious injuries, the report stated. He was identified as Casey Andrews, 32, of Tulsa.

The highway patrol’s critical highway accident response team investigated the crash.

This story was originally published March 12, 2019 at 2:44 PM.