MIAMI – Two South Florida men were killed in separate crashes less than two hours apart during wintry weather in Missouri early Monday morning, according to that state’s highway patrol officials.
One of them was killed by a snowplow in the middle of a chain-reaction crash.
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According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the first crash happened just before 2 a.m. on Interstate 70, just west of Kingdom City in Callaway County, in the central part of the state.
Troopers said Jonas Baptiste, 40, of Fort Lauderdale, had gotten out of his vehicle and was hit by a tractor-trailer.
Columbia ABC affiliate KMIZ posted photos of the crash scene. An MSHP spokesman told the station that Baptiste had been in another crash before leaving his vehicle.
The second crash happened less than two hours later, just before 3:20 a.m. on U.S. 36, about four miles west of the town of Bucklin in northern Missouri’s Linn County.
According to a MSHP crash report, the chain-reaction crash began when a semi truck driver lost control of his vehicle, slammed into a Missouri Department of Transportation snowplow, which then hit Alexander Rodriguez Gonzalez, 51, of Hialeah.
Kirksville ABC affiliate KTVO reports that Rodriguez Gonzalez was a truck driver who was out of his vehicle at the time.
The tractor-trailer driver and snowplow driver both suffered minor injuries, according to MSHP.
The crash reports don’t state if any of the drivers involved in either crash will face citations or charges.