A serious interstate crash this weekend in Franklin left a Muncie woman dead and four others hospitalized.
Just before noon Saturday, emergency crews responded to a multiple car crash at the Franklin exit on southbound Interstate 65. Construction in the southbound lane had caused traffic to slow before the accident. During the slowdown, a silver Buick, driven by 55-year-old Christine Lykins of Muncie, rear-ended a stopped Ford truck, which then subsequently rear-ended a black Cadillac SUV, according to an Indiana State Police news release.
Lykins was unconscious and unresponsive when emergency crews from the Franklin Fire Department arrived. Despite live-saving efforts, she was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the news release. Two other adults, aged 19 and 20, were in the car with her and were ejected through the windshield from the impact of the crash, the release said. ISP investigators believe the the passengers were not wearing seatbelts.
Those two passengers were transported to nearby hospitals, and their conditions are unknown at this time. Both the drivers of the Ford and the Cadillac were also taken to nearby hospitals with non-life threatening injuries, the news release said. Â
The southbound lanes of I-65 were closed for more than two hours while the crash was investigated Saturday.