An eighth body has been discovered at the site of a fiery Georgia highway crash between a semitrailer and van, Deputy Jackson County Coroner Dean Stringer said Tuesday.
The victims were killed Monday afternoon, when a semitrailer struck a van and it burst into flames, according to law enforcement.
The semitrailer was following too close to the Dodge van on Interstate 85 in Jackson County, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta, when the crash happened, authorities said.
Four other vehicles also crashed in what officials described as a “chain reaction” after the initial collision.
A van being used by Furkids Animal Rescue and Shelters was one of the other vehicles involved in the crash. That van’s driver was left with bruises and cuts to his head, according to CEO Samantha Shelton.
“In the chaos of the wreckage, cages were crushed, and cats began to flee,” the Cumming, Georgia-based animal rescue group wrote on its Facebook page.
The group was taking 37 cats to a shelter in Vermont, and some of the cats fled after the crash, Shelton said. Two were still missing as of Tuesday, and one cat was hospitalized in critical care, Shelton said.
The identities of the people killed have not been released.
“Troopers are still trying to identify and confirm the occupants,” Franka Young, a spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Public Safety, said in an email Tuesday afternoon.
Seven people in the van died at the scene, authorities said shortly after the crash. The eighth body was discovered later at the crash site, but details about where the person was found were not immediately released.
The crash is being investigated by the Georgia State Patrol’s Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team, Young said.
