"Couple killed by falling concrete slab were youth ministers" Associated Press April 15, 2015
BONNEY LAKE, Wash. — A Washington state couple who died when a large concrete slab fell from a highway overpass onto their pickup truck were youth ministers in their 20s and parents to a 6-month-old baby also killed in the freak accident.
Vanessa and Josh Ellis and their baby, Hudson, died Monday when a chunk of concrete weighing thousands of pounds fell onto the cab of their truck as they drove underneath the span, said James Ludlow, their pastor at EastPointe Foursquare Church.
Construction crews were installing a sidewalk on the state Route 410 overpass in Bonney Lake, about 30 miles southeast of Seattle, when a concrete barrier fell to the roadway below around 10:30 a.m.
‘‘We were just heading down the street . . . and I could hear three snaps and down it went on top of the truck,’’ Dawn Nelson, who was riding in a car, told Seattle television station KING. ‘‘There was nothing anyone could do. It was just surreal.’’
It was not immediately known what caused the concrete structure to fall.
The material that fell was part of the original span, which was built in 1992 and has a sufficiency rating of 95.3 out of 100, city spokesman Woody Edvalson said.
Flowers, a cross, and a teddy bear have been placed near the overpass, which has reopened. Debris from the concrete is still on the ground.
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