The Story County Sheriff’s office has identified two people killed in a fiery crash yesterday at a rural intersection as 40-year-old Joy Smith and 39-year-old Joshua Johnson, both of Maxwell. Captain Gary Foster says the wreck happened near Roland at a corner with no stop signs. A pickup truck driven by 19-year-old Kyle Holland of New Providence was northbound, two people in another car were westbound. Both vehicles entered the intersection at the same time and collided. The 19-year-old was thrown from his truck and was taken to an Ames hospital. The couple in the other car died when it rolled into a cornfield and caught fire. Extensively damaged by fire, Foster says the car and bodies were difficult to identify. Deputies say the fire was so hot, the license plates on the car were burned off. Captain Foster says there’s no doubt the height of the late-summer corn crop in fields surrounding the crash site played a part in the accident. In three directions and perhaps all four, Foster says the corn blocked the drivers’ view of the intersecting road. “You really have to slow down and be prepared to stop when you come to those gravel-road intersections,” Foster says. He says drivers on Iowa’s rural roads this time of year should take extra care, knowing their vision’s going to be obscured at those rural intersections.
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