HOUSTON – Police are investigating after two people were killed in a rollover crash in northeast Houston.
According to authorities, the accident happened around 3:50 a.m. Thursday near Parker Road and Dodson Street.
Police said the driver, 57, was traveling eastbound when he fell asleep at the wheel and the front passenger, 30, tried to grab the wheel, but it was too late.
The car ran into a ditch then smashed into a large tire, causing the vehicle to flip and land upside down, authorities said.
Neighbor Jeffrey Smith said he heard the moment the car’s metal crumpled.
"I heard a loud crash out front, and I heard a lot of yelling,” Smith said. “I know that they were alive at the time of the accident cause right after I got out here, they were still hollerin’. ‘Please help me.’ I felt so helpless coming out and seeing them upside down, and there was nothing that we could do.”
Three people were inside at the time of the accident, the driver and backseat passenger, 30, were killed in the accident, police said.
The front seat passenger was rushed to a hospital with serious back injuries but is expected to survive, authorities said.
Smith said this isn’t the first accident to happen in the area.
“We have wrecks all the time,” Smith said. “There are just accidents at least once a week it seems like. It’s just people always going into the ditch or getting hurt, ambulance coming. So we just try to stay in at night.”
Police believe it may have been a family who was traveling home together. Authorities said speed also played a role in the crash.