Florida highway smashes kill 10 people

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Ten people died and at least 18 were injured in a series of accidents before dawn Sunday near Gainesville after smoke and fog reduced visibility on the main interstate highway, police said.

The Florida Highway Patrol said the smashes involving 12 cars and six or seven trucks occurred shortly before 4 a.m. on Interstate 75 after smoke from a marsh fire combined with fog to reduce visibility on both the northbound and southbound lanes.

Eighteen people were transported to Shands Hospital emergency room, six of them to a trauma center for people in critical condition, according to hospital spokeswoman Alison Wilson.

Eight of the people treated in the emergency room had been released from the hospital by mid-afternoon.

"It's tragic. It's probably the worst one (accident) I've seen in 27 years," Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Patrick Riordan told Reuters.

Riordan said investigators are still trying to determine how many separate collisions occurred on the interstate, which is a main artery through Florida.

In one crash, two cars and a tractor trailer caught fire and melted asphalt on the road, Riordan said. The interstate remained closed hours later while the investigation continued, and an analysis of the road pavement was under way to determine whether it could be safely re-opened, he said.

Riordan said he had no information yet on the ages or gender of the victims. He said several people died in one car. Crumpled cars littered northbound and southbound lanes and in the grass shoulders of the interstate.

Gainesville is home to Florida's flagship university, the University of Florida. The marsh fire was in or near Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park south of town.

Florida Forest Service investigators are trying to determine whether the fire was set intentionally, Ludie Bond, a spokeswoman for the service, told Reuters. A lack of rain in recent months meant the fire spread quickly through the parched prairie.

(Reporting By Barbara Liston; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan adn Tim Gaynor)

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Mountain lion killed by car on Connecticut highway

Officials say the mountain lion is likely the same one that was seen this week in nearby Greenwich.Connecticut official says it is most likely the same cat that was seen in GreenwichState Environmental Protection is testing to determine if it was the same animalThe driver of the car was uninjured in the wreck

(CNN) -- A mountain lion was killed in a car accident in Milford, Connecticut, on Saturday and authorities say the cat may have been the same one spotted this week in nearby Greenwich.

The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection says it responded to a State Police call about 1 a.m. Saturday morning reporting a collision between a 2006 Hyundai Tucson SUV and a mountain lion in the area of Exit 55 of Route 15 in Milford. The mountain lion died of injuries in the crash, but the SUV driver was uninjured.

Connecticut DEP says it's possible and even likely that the mountain lion killed early Saturday morning is the same cat that's been roaming around Greenwich this month. The animal was last seen Sunday on the campus of a college prep school.

The 140-pound male cat is at a DEP facility where his body, along with paw prints and other specimens are being analyzed and tested to determine if it is the same cat seen in Greenwich.

Mountain lions are not native to Connecticut, but they do travel extensively and can roam a few hundred miles a day, DEP says. Milford is about 40 miles north of Greenwich, which DEP says would have easily been within the cat's roaming range.

CNN

S.C. teen killed on highway named in father's memory

By Gerry Pate, AP

Jordan Crowe, Raegan Fulmer and Natalie White, left to right, pray on Friday near a stretch of Highway 129 in Duncan, S.C., where Aaron Shawn Hill, 18, died in a car crash.

EnlargeCloseBy Gerry Pate, AP

Jordan Crowe, Raegan Fulmer and Natalie White, left to right, pray on Friday near a stretch of Highway 129 in Duncan, S.C., where Aaron Shawn Hill, 18, died in a car crash.

But on his way to class Thursday morning, the 18-year-old senior was killed when a pickup crossed the center line and smashed head-on into his car, authorities said.

Now the Hill family — and many others in this town of nearly 2,300 — are grieving again.

"It's tragic. No one should have to go through this. They've been through so much," said Sheriff Chuck Wright, a friend of the family. "It's just unreal that he died on the same highway named after his father."

The younger Hill was going to graduate in a few months and had talked about joining the military just like his father.

"Even after his father's death, he kept a positive attitude. He kept that smile," the sheriff said.

The teenager was pronounced dead at the scene along the section of two-lane Highway 129 known as the Sergeant Shawn F. Hill Memorial Highway. The driver of the pickup, Michael Blake White, 27, was taken to the hospital along with three students who had been in Hill's car. Their conditions were not released.

The cause of the crash was under investigation, and no immediate charges were filed. But state officials said White did not have a valid license, having lost it nearly a year ago for too many violations. He had been issued 14 tickets since 2003, most of them for speeding.

White was driving home after working the overnight shift at an auto parts factory, according to his father.

"He really doesn't remember it, but he was torn up when we told him what happened," Michael White said. He said his son was badly hurt and was in the intensive care unit.

Hill's friends from 2,200-student Byrnes High School held hands and cried at the scene of the accident and erected a memorial to "A-Rod" consisting of flowers, candles and three crosses painted green and orange, because he was a University of Miami fan. Spray-painted on the road was a heart with the words "RIP AROD."

Wright said he got to know the family years ago when Hill and the sheriff's son were playing baseball. It was the sheriff who went to the accident scene and identified the body Thursday. Then he visited with Hill's family. He said Hill's mother, Julie, was distraught but trying to hold her together a family that includes Hill's two younger brothers.

Hundreds of people attended the funeral three years ago of Hill's father, a 37-year-old member of the Army National Guard, and state lawmakers renamed the highway in his memory months later.

The elder Hill was an all-region defensive end at Byrnes High, a longtime football powerhouse that has won nearly a dozen state titles and has been nationally ranked. An electrician by trade, he joined the National Guard in 1996 and served in Iraq in 2004-05.

At the Hill home in Inman, family members were inside grieving, and no one wanted to talk. On the back window of a blue minivan parked outside was a pair of praying hands with the words "In loving memory of Sgt. Shawn Hill."

Ondrea Reid, a former neighbor, said Aaron Hill took his father's death hard — harder than his siblings did — because the two had bonded over playing sports together. Aaron Hill told her he was thinking about joining the military to honor his dad.

"I remember he told people he planned to finish school, go to college and make sure he did something to make his dad proud," she said.

On Friday, Reid drove down the road where Aaron Hill died, past the green memorial sign honoring his father and the makeshift memorial at the crash scene.

"It's really something to see the sign honoring such a great man and then drive a little more and see a memorial to his son," Reid said, pausing to take a deep breath. "Man, it's just crazy."

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S.C. teen dies in crash on highway named for his father

The Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal and the Associated Press bring us the sad story about an 18-year-old high school senior killed in a car wreck on a stretch of road named for his father, a National Guard sergeant killed in Afghanistan.

Aaron Shawn Hill died Thursday morning on the Sergeant Shawn F. Hill Memorial Highway (State Highway 129) in Wellford, S.C., as he drove three friends to Byrnes High School. His Honda was hit head-on when a westbound Chevrolet pickup crossed the center line of the two-lane road. His friends and the 27-year-old pickup driver were hospitalized; their conditions were not released.

No charges have been filed yet. Police said the pickup driver's license was revoked nearly a year ago for speeding.

Aaron Hill talked of joining the military like his father, who was killed in 2008 when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb.

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