5 Killed In Cottonwood County Party Bus Crash Identified

Five people died and two others were critically injured in a party bus crash in southwestern Minnesota late Friday, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

The two-vehicle head-on crash occurred shortly after 4:40 p.m. on Highway 71 at 240th Street in Cottonwood County, Minnesota State Patrol Sgt. Troy Christianson said.

A GMC Terrain SUV was headed northbound on Highway 71 when it collided with a Ford Transit van headed southbound on Highway 71, killing the driver of the SUV and multiple family members on the party bus, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

It wasn’t clear what caused one of the vehicles to cross over into oncoming traffic.

The group on the party bus were celebrating the birthday of 73-year-old Richard Warren Johnson, according to Christianson and the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Serena McCartney told the Minnesota Star Tribune that her uncle died along with his wife and two daughters. Those killed included Jacksonians Kathleen Ann Johnson, 73, and Kelly Christine Hargus, 49 and Lakefield’s Lindsey Kay Rossow, 47, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

The driver of the SUV killed in the crash was identified as Martin Nickolas Hanson, 67, of Springfield.

Two more family members are fighting life-threatening injuries, and six others suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

McCartney described her lost family members as a tight-knit group.

“They did everything together,” McCartney told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “They were wonderful people ... and so unbelievably close.”

Motorist Max Miller told the Minnesota Star Tribune he helped the survivors, many of them wearing Jackson County Central High School shirts and coats.

“I helped one younger gentleman with lower leg pain out of a broken window and put him down on the grass along the side of the road,” Miller said. “I put him on my hip like he was a toddler.”

The crash remains under investigation, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.