Family of 5 Wiped Out in Highway Wreck

SUV hit tractor-trailer on I-75
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 22, 2017 3:46 AM CDT
Updated Mar 22, 2017 6:33 AM CDT
Highway Crash Kills Family of 5
The Russell family.   (GoFundMe)

Relatives are mourning an entire family wiped out in a horrific crash early Sunday on Interstate 75 in northern Florida. Police say parents Nathan and Lynda Russell and children La'Nyah 15, and Natayah, 10, were pronounced dead at the scene after their SUV veered off the road and hit the back of a disabled tractor-trailer, 11Alive reports. Nathan Jr., Natayah's twin brother, was pronounced dead in a Gainesville hospital on Monday. The Russells were on their way back to their Fort Lauderdale-area home from Georgia, according to a GoFundMe page set up to help Lynda Russell's parents with funeral expenses.

"This one hurts. From the Bahamas to Haiti to South Florida...our hearts are broken," Nathan Russell's cousin said in a Facebook post, per the Miami Herald. Police say the father was at the wheel of the rented 2016 Chrysler 200, in which Natayah was the only one wearing a seatbelt. "What we believe is that it was possibly driver fatigue. That's what the thinking is right now," a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman tells the Gainesville Sun. "A lot of people are taking road trips now with spring breaks. Maybe that's what they were doing." (More car crash stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X