MASON CITY, IA : Police identify five killed in fiery Iowa crash on April, Monday 10th 2017
Authorities have released the names of five people killed in a fiery Mason City crash early Monday morning.They're identified as Zachary Hartley, 20, the driver of the vehicle and his four passengers: Donte Foster, 17; Roderick Lewis, 18; Sydney Alcorn, 14 and Alex Wiebke, 19, all of Mason City.
Police say an officer discovered the accident scene around 2:40 a.m. Monday after officials noticed that power had been knocked out to hundreds of customers. Officials say the accident apparently caused the outage.
Mason City Police Chief Jeff Brinkley said, "You can imagine, when you have this kind of loss, even as a first responder, you don't just walk away from that and have a good day. It just doesn't happen. I've been a police officer for 22 years and I've never seen an incident like this."
Officials say the vehicle hit a tree and burned.
Police Captain Mike McKelvey said, "The biggest part now is for the community to grieve. We have two different school systems affected plus all the family, friends of the deceased. Not to mention, the first responders that had to deal with the wreckage, and treat the fire, and remove the bodies - all that stuff. There's a lot of ripples and shock waves that went through the community."
A makeshift memorial marks the scene of the accident. A vigil was held Tuesday.
Skyler Moorehead, a relative of two of the victims, said, "It means a lot to me. It just shows that there's a whole bunch of people out there, some that I didn't even know, that have love and respect for my family and, you know, reaching out to people in my family to make sure that they're good, they have everything they need right now."
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
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Police identify five killed in fiery Iowa crash