BELLE GLADE — Nine people are dead, six of them age 15 or younger, after an SUV went into a canal Monday evening northeast of Belle Glade, the deadliest vehicle crash in Palm Beach County in recent memory.
Four people died at the scene and the other five at a trauma hospital, two of them flown there by helicopter, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said.
A 10th person, the sole survivor of the wreck, was in serious condition at St. Mary Medical Center in West Palm Beach.
The sheriff's office identified all 10 people in the SUV Tuesday but only released places of residence for some of them. Two of those under 15 who died lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a third in Chesapeake, Virginia.
The driver was identified as Pamela Wiggins, who died one day before her 57th birthday. A sheriff's report did not list a place of residence for Wiggins or specify her relationship to the nine passengers.
Also killed in the crash were passengers Leiana Alyse Hall, 30; Anyia Tucker, 21; Michael Anthony Hall, Jr., 14; Imani Hall, 9; Kamdien Edwards, 5; Yasire Smith, 5; Ziaire Mack, 3; and Naleia Tucker, 23 months. Little Kamdien and Anyia Tucker were from Connecticut, while 3-year-old Ziaire was from Virginia.
The lone survivor was identified as 26-year-old passenger Jorden Hall. The sheriff did not include a place of residence for him.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced Tuesday that it is sending a team to the area to conduct a safety investigation in coordination with the sheriff's office, the lead agency looking into the crash.
Crash took place at sharp, narrow turn along Hatton Highway near Belle Glade
Investigators say the crash happened just before 7:30 p.m. Monday on the 5800 block of Hatton Highway, a two-lane road that runs through the agricultural lands west of Twenty-Mile Bend, flanked by fields and electrical poles.
According to a sheriff's report, a 2023 Ford Explorer was traveling west on Hatton Highway and approaching a southbound curve in the roadway when, for unknown reasons, its driver failed to negotiate the sharp, narrow left curve, one so tight that a car and a truck might struggle to make it at the same time.
The vehicle went off the roadway and onto the grass shoulder. It then struck the guardrail and overturned as it went into a canal. The sheriff's report did not say how fast the vehicle was traveling at the time of the crash.
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Sheriff's deputies and Palm Beach County Fire Rescue medics found the vehicle upside down and partially submerged. Divers from Fire Rescue searched the canal during the investigation.
A Florida Department of Transportation employee said the canal was about 6 feet deep and its water and surrounding soil was muddy due to recent heavy rains.
Death toll greater than other notable recent crashes in Palm Beach County
The crash is one of the deadliest to occur in Palm Beach County in recent memory.
In January 2022, six people were killed in a collision involving two vehicles on State Road 7 west of Delray Beach. Investigators said a then-17-year-old male from Wellingtonwas driving a BMW northon the 14000 block of State Road 7 "at a high rate of speed" shortly beforerear-ending a Nissan Rogue SUV.
Noah Galle, now 20, is facing six counts of vehicular homicide. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is awaiting trial.
In 2013, five people in their teens and early 20s were killed in a two-vehicle collision on Blue Heron Boulevard in Riviera Beach near the the northbound Interstate 95 exit ramp. Jabari Kemp of Florida City was sentenced to five years in prison and credited with time served in 2021 after he pleaded guilty to five counts of vehicular homicide.
Kemp previously was sentenced to 30 years after being convicted at trial in 2015, but an appeals court overturned that conviction.
In March 2015, eight members of a Fort Pierce church died and 10 others were injured when the van in which they were riding crashed on State Road 78 in Moore Haven in Hendry County. The 18 people were returning to St. Lucie County after a Palm Sunday service in Fort Myers.
Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him atjwhigham@pbpost.comand follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at@JuliusWhigham. Help support our work:Subscribe today.
