A Morrilton woman was killed Thursday in an Interstate 40 pileup that left six others injured and backed up traffic into the afternoon, the Arkansas State Police said.
The accident occurred about 10:38 a.m. near mile marker 111 in the Conway County town of Plumerville, according to a preliminary accident report. Elias Galvan, 24, of Fort Smith was driving a 2008 Ford Focus in the eastbound, inside lane when he rear-ended a 2010 GMC pickup that was stopped because of construction work, the report said.
Upon impact, the GMC pickup rotated, and hit the rear of a 2004 Dodge van, which then hit the rear of a 2003 Honda van, state police said. The GMC pickup's driver, Melanie Gayle Roggenbach, 50, of Morrilton, was killed.
Her passengers Patricia Lytle, 58, of Morrilton and Adonis Kriegbaum, 102, of Vilonia, were injured. Galvan and passenger Juan Garcia, 25, of Fort Smith, were also hurt in the wreck.
Passengers Karla Almeida, 22, of Fort Smith and Oscar Gonzalez, 21, of Fort Smith were also injured, according to the report.
The drivers of the two vans and six passengers were not hurt, state police said.
The injured were taken to Conway Regional Medical Center and St. Vincent's Hospital in Little Rock, state police said. No immediate word was available on their conditions.
The weather was cloudy and the roads were wet at the time of the accident, according to the report. By the afternoon, I-40 eastbound traffic was backed up from the Plumerville exit to the Morrilton exit.
Roggenbach's death was the 186th to occur in traffic accidents on state roads so far this year, according to state police records.