2 members of Tennessee college cycling team killed in highway collision

Two members of the Milligan University cycling team were killed, and several more injured, in a collision with a vehicle on a rural highway in eastern Tennessee on Wednesday morning, both state officials and the school confirmed. A driver has been arrested.

In a news conference Wednesday night, Milligan University President Dr. Stephen Waers said that 11 cyclists were on a training ride when the crash occurred at about 8 a.m. local time. Waers said that two cyclists were killed and seven others hospitalized.

Waers identified the two deceased victims as sophomores Haylan Engdahl and Brayden Rogers.

"This is an elite cycling team, it's not a bunch of club guys getting together to ride, they know what they're doing," Tennessee First Judicial District Attorney General Steven Finney told reporters.

Officials reported the injured cyclists were airlifted by helicopter to Johnson City Medical Center, an area hospital. Dr. Bracken Burns, the trauma medical director for Johnson City Medical Center, said in the news conference that of the seven patients the hospital received, four were in critical condition, two were in stable condition, and the seventh was evaluated and released.

Milligan University, a small Christian college located in Elizabethton, Tennessee, said the crash occurred in the community of Hampton, about 10 miles east of the campus.

Tennessee Highway Patrol said the crash took place on a rural highway. Officials did not provide any details on the circumstances of the crash during the news conference. A highway patrol source told CBS News that it occurred in a mountainous area.

"Our troopers are now trying to determine exactly what happened," Tennessee Highway Patrol Maj. Roy Brown said in the news conference.

Finney said the suspected driver, identified as 69-year-old John Benfield from Newland, North Carolina, was taken into custody on two counts of vehicular homicide by recklessness and five counts of aggravated assault by vehicle by recklessness.

"We will keep trying and working, additional charges could come," Finney said.