Church van overturns on Alabama highway, killing 1
TUSCALOOSA — A church van overturned on an Alabama interstate Friday, killing a woman and sending five other people to the hospital, authorities said.
The van from a Cleveland, Ohio, church overturned in a one-vehicle accident on Interstate 20/59 around 1 p.m. Friday about 20 miles east of Tuscaloosa.
The van's driver, 45-year-old Diane L. Hill of Euclid, Ohio, was killed in the crash, according to a statement from the Alabama Department of Public Safety.
Injured in the accident were Lillian Robinson, 55, of Lawrenceville, Ohio; Obadiah Miliner, 68, Patricia Lewis, 62, Terrell Jackson, 39, and Michael Miliner, 35, all of Cleveland, state troopers said.
The department is investigating the accident and didn't immediately release further details.
Travis Parker, a spokesman for the Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue Service, said the bus from Unity Baptist Church had been carrying six people and was upside down when rescue workers arrived at the scene.
The communications director for DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, Brad Fisher, said Michael Miliner and Robinson were in fair condition at the hospital Friday night. Jackson, Lewis and Obadiah Miliner were treated and released.
State troopers said the accident closed the southbound lanes of the interstate for more than an hour.
