ULLIN, Illinois — Three persons died and three were hurt in a traffic crash Thursday morning on Illinois Route 3 in Union County Thursday morning.
Illinois State Police reports the following died in the crash:
Marie Meunier, 32 of Cape Girardeau,
Vamshi Pechetty, 23 of Carbondale and
Pavan Swarna, 23 of Carbondale.
The injured in the crash are:
23-year-old Yaswanth Uppalapati,
23-year-old Kakumanu Karthik and
24-year-old Kalyan Dorna, both of Carbondale.
ISP says the crash happened when a southbound Fiat sedan, driven by Meunier crossed the center line and struck the front of a Toyota sedan, driven by Swarna.
The injured persons: 23-year-old Yaswanth Uppalapati, 23-year-old Kakumanu Karthik and 24-year-old Kalyan Dorna, all of Carbondale, were taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The crash happened just north of Old Cape Road.
According to a release from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, two of the three people that were killed on Route 3 in Union County Thursday morning were SIU students.
Chancellor Austin A. Lane released a statement on the tragedy saying,
“We are heartbroken to learn of a tragic car accident that has taken the lives of two members of the Saluki family and injured three others.
“We send our condolences to the families of Vamshi Krishna Pechetty, a graduate student in computer science, and Pavan Swarna, a graduate student in computer science, and we hope Kalyan Dorna, a graduate student in civil engineering, Karthik Kakumanu, a graduate student in computer science, and Yaswanth Uppalapati, a graduate student in computer science, will heal.