After the two vehicles hit, a tractor-trailer struck the pickup as it spun from the initial crash, S.C. Highway Patrol officials said.
The van was heading south at about 5:15 a.m. when the pickup, driving north, crossed the center line of the two-lane highway and struck the van head-on, killing three passengers, said Lance Cpl. Paul Brouthers of the S.C. Highway Patrol.
Six other passengers in the van and the driver of the pickup were taken to area hospitals for their injuries, Brouthers said.
The passenger of the pickup was also killed in the accident, he said.
Beaufort County Coroner Curt Copeland identified the passenger of the pickup Thursday night as 25-year-old Patrick Glenn Adams.
The other fatal victims were not identified Thursday night because the identities had not been confirmed, Copeland said.
Brouthers said the survivors' names also had not been confirmed as of Thursday night.
The tractor-trailer driver wasn't injured, he said.
The six injured in the van were transported to Beaufort Memorial Hospital, Brouthers said, and one was then transported on to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah.
The injured driver of the pickup was flown to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, he said.
Both lanes of U.S. 17 were closed until about noon. Excessive speed was not thought to have been a factor in the collisions, Brouthers said. Charges are pending against the driver of the pickup.
"In a head-on, if both people are going 55 mph, they're closing in at 110 mph," he said. "It's going to be a violent collision."
Alcohol and drugs were also not believed to have played a part, Brouthers said.
The accident occurred on a 55-mph stretch of U.S. 17, about a mile from where three sailors died and dozens were injured in a March 2004 wreck.
Sheldon Fire District, Beaufort and Hampton County Emergency Medical Services and the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office and State Highway Patrol responded to the scene.
The passenger van was smashed and burnt from the accident, and spots of blood could be seen on the smashed dashboard of the pickup and on the ground around it.
As state troopers collected evidence from the scene while the morning temperature rose with the sun, trucker Lonnie Powers stood near the wreck, his own semi idling.
He had come upon the accident within minutes of it occurring, Powers said.
"The van was smoking and starting to catch fire," Powers said at the scene. "It just happened so fast."
After he pulled up, he and other truckers tried putting the fire out with fire extinguishers, he said, but to no avail.
"It was messed up," he said. "They need to widen this road."
Deadly stretch
The most recent data by the state Transportation Department for accidents on the 22-mile stretch of U.S. 17 in Beaufort and Colleton counties from 1997 to 2003 show 895 crashes with 23 deaths and 552 injuries. The road's reputation as a crash corridor was televised last month as part of a "Dateline NBC" segment on dangerous highways.
Public and political sentiment increased when the death of the sailors in 2004 on the pastoral stretch of road brought attention to the 23 fatalities over the previous six years. The road had been eyed by state lawmakers and transportation officials for widening, but the potential price tag has not been funded beyond $9 million in engineering and design work.
In response to Thursday's fatal wreck and numerous other wrecks along U.S. 17, Rep. Catherine Ceips, R-Beaufort, said she will form an advocacy group for widening the highway to four lanes and to expedite the permitting and funding process at the federal level.
The latest wreck underscores that the project must happen, she said. To make that happen, victims and their families need a cohesive front that can push the project to fruition.
"So many people have been touched by deaths on that highway, and they don't have a pulled-together effort" to get the highway widened, Ceips said.
Those interested in joining the advocacy group can call Ceips at 524-2020.
A project to replace the Combahee River Bridge at the Beaufort-Colleton county line should begin next year, as should a U.S. 17 intersection project in Jacksonboro, said Bob Harrell, a state highway commissioner.
Permitting processes at the federal level move very slowly, he said. Because widening the road would require permits and land acquisition, it wouldn't start until the summer of 2007 at its current pace.
Entities at the federal level and the permitting process would both need to be sped up to get a plan drafted, funds secured and the widening started sooner, Harrell said.
"That would require movement of almost epic proportions or a public outcry," he said. "You could take six to nine months off the process."
The Lowcountry Council of Governments is working on plans for developing congressional highway appropriations for Beaufort, Colleton, Jasper and Hampton counties that would involve safety issues, planning director Ginnie Kozak said in May.
But appropriations for the four-county region will be halved for several years to pay down debt and likely would fall short of what's needed to widen U.S. 17, she said.
"That project will probably have to come from something special," Kozak said in May.
Ceips said Thursday that she had been in contact with U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, as well as U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-Beaufort, regarding expediting the federal part of the process.
In a statement released Thursday, Wilson said his "heart goes out to the families of those who lost loved ones today on Highway 17."
"Today's tragedy is a horrific reminder that we must secure funding to widen and improve this dangerous highway," he said. "I will continue to work with state, federal and local officials to improve Highway 17 and prevent further accidents."
Aside from permitting matters, federal funds are needed because the total project could potentially cost up to $300 million, Harrell said.
State Transportation Department efforts to move the process forward were renewed last year after the fatal accident involving a bus full of sailors, he said, and officials at the federal level had refused to permit the project as far back as the early 1990s.
"We're talking about a very dangerous road," Harrell said. "It's tragic. We have accident after accident, fatality after fatality and injury after injury."