Six family members returning from safari killed in crash in Texas | US News

A head-on crash involving a teenage driver in a pickup truck and a van full of people getting back from a safari killed six members of the same family.

Luke Resecker and a passenger in his pickup truck, both aged 17, were heading south on a two-lane section of Highway 67 in Johnson County on the day after Christmas, according to Texas State Troopers.

Resecker is believed to have driven his Chevrolet Silverado truck into the northbound lane in a no-passing zone and hit a Honda Odyssey minivan carrying seven people on Tuesday evening, per the troopers’ preliminary investigation.

Six people in the van died and three others were hurt in the crash on the highway between Country Road 1234 and Country Road 1120, said the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).

Glen Rose residents Resecker and Preston Glass, who was in the passenger seat, were transported to hospitals in Fort Worth in critical condition, WSB Radio reported.

‘For an unknown reason at this time, the Chevrolet pickup truck traveled into the northbound lane and struck the Honda Odyssey head-on,’ DPS Sgt William Lockridge told NBC 5.

The family members who died were Nishidha Potabathula, 9; Krithik Potabathula, 10; Rushil Barri, 28; Naveena Potabathula, 36; Sitamahalakshmi Ponnada, 60; and Nageswararao Ponnada, 64, according to the DPS.

Barri had moved to Irving from India in August 2020, said his roommate Ayyappala Bandaru. Barri was a ‘distant relative’ of the other victims in the minivan and they were all returning from Fossil Rim Wildlife Center at the time of the crash, Ashok Kolla of the Telugu Association of North America told the Dallas Morning News.

‘At 4:01, she got a message saying Rushil’s iPhone has met with a crash,’ Bandaru told NBC 5. ‘We were in shock like what just happened. We tried reaching everyone in the car and no one is picking up.’

The sole survivor in the minivan was Lokesh Potabathula, 40. The victims’ loved ones face the devastating task of informing relatives living in India.

‘It’s really bad. We don’t know how to convey this news to them,’ Bandaru said. ‘We can’t just call them and say your son is no more, he met with an accident.’

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