CONGRESS TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WOIO) - Two passengers in a box truck were killed after the truck they were riding in collided with a semi-tractor trailer stopped along I-71 in Wayne County early Sunday.
Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers are investigating the crash that involved two commercial trucks headed northbound near milepost 195 on I-71, according to an OSHP media release.
The crash occurred shortly after 3:30 a.m. after a 2017 International semi-tractor trailer stopped along the northbound berm on I-71, the release said.
The truck had struck a deer and was disabled.That’s when the 2011 Isuzu NPR box truck — also traveling northbound — drove onto the berm and struck the disabled tractor-trailer.
Two passengers in the box truck, Nicholas Paul Holmes, 30, of Girard, and Christopher Ryan Fox, 21, of Youngstown, died at the scene of the crash, according to the OSHP.
The driver of the box truck, Zachary Thomas Carpenter, 28, of Brookfield, was taken to Akron General Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The operator of the disabled semi-tractor was not injured.I-71 was closed for about two hours because of the crash, the release said.