3 dead, 8 injured after vehicle hits, kills bear

MIAMI (AP) — Three good Samaritans were killed Sunday night when they were struck by a car after they'd stopped along a dark, two-lane road in the Florida Everglades to assist another motorist whose vehicle hit a black bear.

The accident took place on Snake Road, which is in the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation, about 18 miles north of Alligator Alley and about halfway between Fort Lauderdale and Naples.

Seminole police spokesman Gary Bitner told The Associated Press that a woman driving a sports utility vehicle saw the bear crossing the road just before 7 p.m. Sunday and couldn't stop in time to avoid hitting it. The bear was killed, and the impact damaged her vehicle to the extent that she wasn't able to drive it.

A short time later, three vehicles that were traveling together stopped on the side of the road to assist the woman.

Eight people who were in those three vehicles were standing on the side of the road. Another vehicle, heading in the opposite direction, hit the SUV and sideswiped one of the stopped vehicles, sending it into the people on the road's shoulder, Bitner said. The driver of the SUV and the driver of the other vehicle that hit the SUV were not injured.