CHUNKY, Miss. — A Halloween wagon-ride crash killed a mother, her two daughters and injured six others, all family members, on Monday night.

Mississippi Highway Patrol responded to the accident on Highway 80 near the Ridge Road intersection around 7:45 p.m on Monday. A Ford F-150 hit the back of a small trailer being towed by a Jeep Wrangler, killing Kristina Shaver, 33, Baylie Shaver, 8, and Brooke Shaver, 2, all of Chunky, according to a news release from Sgt. Andy West of the Mississippi Highway Patrol Troop H. 

Newton County, Mississippi, Coroner Danny Shoemaker said the other family members injured have been taken for treatment at hospitals in Meridian, Mississippi, or at the University in Jackson.

“They all are family,” Shoemaker said.

Ten people were in the trailer and seven have life-threatening injuries and are in critical condition, West said. Emergency responders used three helicopters and a number of ambulances to take the injured to Jackson to hospitals.

“We heard the helicopters and sirens,” said Wayne Chaney, a Chunky resident who lives about a quarter of a mile from the crash site.

Chaney went to the scene and said it looked like the truck had driven onto the trailer, covering nearly eight feet of an estimated 12-foot trailer.

“It was just devastation. It was really hard to look at,” said Chaney, a 15-year Chunky resident. “I was fireman in Meridian for 30 years and I hadn’t seen anything like it.”

Chaney worried not only about the effect on the community but also about the effect on first responders.

“It’s going to be bad not only on the people involved but also the people that worked it, too,” Chaney said. “When there’s children involved, it’s extremely difficult.”

Police said the Jeep driver, Terry Smith, 58, and the Ford driver, Chase Cook, 20, sustained no injuries.

Investigators have not determined a cause.

“It was just a community trick-or-treat function. They were going door-to-door,” West said about the organization of the trailer ride. “And that’s all we know.”

“Chunky’s a real small town. It’ll affect everybody in the town,” Chaney said. “Everybody knows everybody or knows somebody that knows somebody.”

“You just couldn’t imagine,” said Shoemaker, who responded to the incident. “Around here that’s not supposed to… It hits home.”

Downard writes for the Meridian, Mississippi, Star.