12 Injured, Including Le Center Man, 5 Children When Semi Hits Traffic Stopped For I-35 Construction

Twelve people, including a Le Center man and five children, were injured when a semi slammed into traffic stopped for construction on I-35.

The crash happened just before 8 p.m. in Webster Township in Rice County.

A state patrol crash report says six vehicles were stopped in the southbound I-35 lanes for a construction zone when they were struck from behind by a semi.

Dwain Thomas Wiener, 33, of Le Center, was driving one of the six vehicles.  Wiener and his passenger, Makenna Jo Belling, 15, of Erie, ND, were both transported to a Northfield hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Belling was one of five children injured in the crash. Three children, ages 2, 4, and 10, were passengers in Chrysler driven by a 26-year-old Faribault woman.  All occupants of that vehicle were transported to District One hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

A 12-year-old from Faribault, a passenger in another vehicle, also suffered non-life threatening injuries and was hospitalized, along with the car’s driver and two other passengers.

Also hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries was a 51-year-old Faribault woman, a 37-year-old Apple Valley man, and a 28-year-old man from Laramie, Wyoming.

The driver of the semi, Murray D. Wood, 58, of Manitoba, was uninjured.