Three die in auto collision

The July 4 holiday ended in tragedy Sunday for two adults and a child who were killed instantly when their car collided with a pick-up truck towing a boat in a Sunrise Mountain pass.

The dead, who were not immediately identified, included the 29-year-old driver of a red 1995 Toyota Corolla and the car's 38-year-old female passenger and a juvenile passenger.

Two adults and three children in the second vehicle, a 1993 Ford pick-up truck, were not seriously injured.

The five people in the truck were wearing seat belts.

Metro Police Sgt. Curt Albert said seat belts would not have saved the three people in the Toyota because of the severity of the impact.

Albert said the Toyota may have been going too fast for wet road conditions when it went out of control on a stretch of road popularly known as Sunrise Saddleback.

"We've had several fatalities at that location," said Albert.

There were at least two earlier accidents Sunday near the site of the triple fatality, which was on Lake Mead Boulevard about two miles east of Hollywood Boulevard.

One of the accidents involved a vehicle losing control on the slick road and rolling over, and the other involved a car running off the road. There were no serious injuries in either of those incidents.

Albert said the Toyota was eastbound, going toward Lake Mead, when the driver lost control and the vehicle slid sideways into the truck driven by Barry Eilers, 39, of Las Vegas.

Others in the truck included Terry Karas, 33, Dakota Karas, 6, Brianne Eilers, 9, and Kari Eilers, 7, all of Las Vegas.

The collision was so sudden there was no time for evasive actions, according to Albert.

The truck broadsided car's right side, killing the three people, Albert said.

The Clark County Fire Department had to use the jaw's of life to extricate the bodies from the wreckage.

The two-lane road was blocked to through traffic in both directions for almost four hours.

Heavy traffic from weekend vacationers returning from the lake was diverted through Henderson, a detour of about 30 miles.

Albert said the accident was the only fatality of the July 4 weekend in the Metro Police jurisdiction. There have been 63 fatalities in its jurisdiction this year.

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