In the US four people have died and more than 40 others were injured after a car crashed into a crowd of spectators, during a homecoming parade in Oklahoma.
Witnesses told of bodies being thrown dozens of feet into the air as the car drove into crowds at an intersection of Main Street and Hall of Fame Avenue in Stillwater, some 130km northeast of Oklahoma City, at the end of the parade.
Stillwater Mayor Gina Noble and local police said the car crashed through barricades and struck an unmanned police motorcycle before carving through the mass of spectators.
"At first we thought it was part of the show," Konda Walker, a 1991 graduate of OSU, told the local Stillwater News Press."People were flying 30 feet (9 meters) into the air like ragdolls."
Representatives for OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City said the hospital received eight victims from the crash, five of them children, ranging in condition from good to critical. One of those patients, a two-year-old child, later died.
Stillwater Medical Center said in a statement that its staff had treated about 40 patients aged 2 to 65. About half of them had been released by Saturday evening.
The driver, identified as 25-year-old Adacia Avery Chambers, was taken into custody on suspicion of driving while under the influence of alcohol, said Captain Kyle Gibbs of the Stillwater Police.
"I've been here 29 years and I can't recall an incident of this magnitude," Mr Gibbs told reporters at the scene.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin expressed her sorrow for the families of those who lost their lives and those who were injured in the incident on her Twitter account.
Just went to the hospital to visit families whose loved ones are being cared for after the #OSU tragedy. We are all praying for them
— Governor Mary Fallin (@GovMaryFallin) October 25, 2015
After the crash, Oklahoma State University said it decided against canceling its homecoming football game, which went ahead as planned against Kansas and was dedicated to the victims. Some 25,000 students attend the university.
"We are shocked and heartbroken by this horrible tragedy. The Oklahoma State University Homecoming parade is the most wholesome of events and to have it marred in such a way is incomprehensible," the school's president, V. Burns Hargis, said.
"The Cowboy Family is devastated by events at this morning's homecoming parade," the school said on its website, referring to the college mascot.
