Two students killed, seven injured after car strikes university cycling team in Tennessee

Two members of a university cycling team were killed and seven others injured Wednesday after a car struck a group of riders in northeastern Tennessee , according to state officials.

Milligan University, a private Christian college with more than 1,200 students, said 11 members of its cycling team were on a morning training ride when they were hit by a driver in Hampton, about 11 miles (18 kilometers) from the campus in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

District Attorney Steve Finney said a 69-year-old North Carolina man had been arrested and charged with two counts of reckless vehicular homicide and five counts of aggravated assault by vehicle with recklessness.

Milligan sophomores Haylan Engdahl, of Winthrop Harbor, Illinois, and Brayden Rogers, of Huntsville, Alabama, were killed in the crash, university President Stephen Waers said. The other student-athletes were transported to the nearby Johnson City Medical Center, he said.

“We need to help our brothers and sisters bear burdens that are too great for any one person to carry alone,” Waers said in an emotional video message shared with the school community. He urged students to come together in prayer for their injured peers.

As of Wednesday evening, four students were in critical condition, two others were stable but remained in the hospital, and one student had been discharged, said the hospital's trauma medical director, Dr. Bracken Burns.

Tennessee First Judicial District Attorney General Steven Finney said at a press conference Wednesday night that the cyclists were part of an “elite cycling team,” adding that they were “not a bunch of club guys getting together to ride” and knew what they were doing.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol said the crash occurred on a rural highway, but officials did not provide further details.

Earlier this year, the Milligan University men's cycling team won a team time trial national championship at the USA Cycling Collegiate Road Nationals in Wisconsin.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol was still investigating the circumstances of the crash, said Maj. Roy Brown. The speed limit on the section of Highway 19 where the the crash occurred is 50 miles per hour (about 80 kilometers per hour), officials said.