TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Two teenage basketball players, a coach and a trainer from the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area who were on their way back from a tournament were among eight people killed in a fiery head-on highway crash in eastern Kansas.
Authorities said the other victims in Sunday’s crash on a two-lane stretch of U.S. 169 about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri, included three members of a St. Louis-area family. The crash occurred when a southbound SUV driven by the trainer, carrying the teammates, collided with a northbound sedan with the St. Louis family as passengers, the Kansas Highway Patrol reported.
A third teenager from the Tulsa area survived the crash and was hospitalized with what the Highway Patrol described as potentially a minor injury.
Video obtained from bystanders by KSHB-TV in Kansas City shows people trying to save those trapped in the burning vehicles and pounding on the windows of one of them but unable to get close enough to pull people out because of the flames.
The young basketball players who died were Donald “DJ” Laster, 14, a student at Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa; and Kyrin Schumpert, a ninth-grader at the Union High School Freshman Academy in the Tulsa area, who also sometimes went by Kyrin Gilstrap, according to Union Public Schools.
The boys were members of the Oklahoma Chaos youth basketball program, which participated in a tournament in the Kansas City area. It called the crash “an unimaginable tragedy” in a post on the social platform X.
“Please wrap their families and friends with love and support as they try to get through this very difficult time,” the post said. “Our organization has taken a tremendous hit and we are deeply saddened.”
Ron Horton, a teacher at Booker T. Washington, said in a video sent by Tulsa Public Schools that he has seen a lot of kids come and go in his 17 years of teaching and that DJ Laster was “something special.”
He said Laster was a quintessential student-athlete who worked as hard at academics as he did at sport during the busy varsity basketball season. He said Laster was among only two freshmen to make the school’s varsity team and stood out for how he put others at ease.
“It’s just a shock, it is, that he’s gone,” Horton said.
Two adults traveling with them also died — Wayne Walls, of Talala, Oklahoma, 41, a former teacher and coach at Carver Middle School in Tulsa — and Ja’mon Gilstrap, a trainer and driver with the Tulsa Public Schools’ transportation team. Gilstrap was driving the SUV at the time of the accident.
The sole survivor of the accident was Braden Walls, 15, also of Talala, Oklahoma, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol. An obituary posted online identified him as Wayne Walls’ son.
The other driver — Alexander Ernst, 37, of Ames, Iowa — also died, along with Madalyn Elliott, 33; John Elliott, 76, and Norleen Elliott, 69, all of Chesterfield, Missouri.
The Kansas Highway Patrol said the crash occurred a few miles outside of Greeley, Kansas, a town of fewer than 300 people, at about 5:45 p.m. Sunday, as Gilstrap, the driver of the SUV, attempted to pass a slow-moving vehicle. He and the sedan driven by Ernst were headed toward each other in the northbound lane, and both drivers swerved to avoid a collision, but both went into the northbound shoulder of the highway.
The crash caused a fire, and “both cars burned up,” officials said.
___
Hollingworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press writer Hallie Golden in Seattle also contributed.
