The death toll on icy roads during Minnesota's late-week snowstorm rose to four Saturday after an apparent good Samaritan was fatally struck by a car in Plymouth.
Police in the northwest metro city said a pedestrian who was helping a driver whose car had spun out was hit by another vehicle that had spun out around 12:15 a.m. Saturday on Hwy. 169. The pedestrian, whose name has not been released, died at the scene.
The fatality occurred during a rash of crashes late Friday and early Saturday concentrated in the west and north metro, where roads glazed over after late precipitation and a dip in temperatures.
According to police scanner reports, witnesses and officers at the Plymouth crash found a body in a ditch that had not come from either of the cars involved.
About three hours earlier, Clarence A. Coker, 58, of St. Paul, was killed when his pickup truck spun out and rolled over 2½ times in a ditch along Hwy. 169 in Princeton, in central Minnesota, according to the State Patrol. Coker was wearing a seat belt and alcohol was not involved, the patrol said.
West of Duluth, semitrailer truck driver Christopher M. Lucia, 44, of Duluth, died at 4:40 a.m. Friday when he crashed into the icy St. Louis River. The rig slid off Interstate 35 on an overpass near Scanlon, the patrol said. Hours later, authorities recovered Lucia's body from the river.
Later that morning, just after 9 a.m., Alvaro A. Rodriguez, 26, of Pierz, Minn., died when he lost control of his southbound car on icy Hwy. 25 in Daggett Brook Township, in Crow Wing County, and was struck by a northbound semitrailer truck, the patrol said. The truck driver, Rodney A. Lund, 60, of Fargo, was not hurt. Both were wearing seat belts.
217 crashes, 161 spinouts
From 12:01 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. Friday, the span of the storm, there were 217 crashes statewide, including the two fatalities, 25 with injuries, as well as 161 spinouts, according to the patrol.
