Five members of the NIU Forensics team were involved in a traffic accident on a Wisconsin highway Saturday night.

While driving back from the Grace Walsh Individual Events College Forensics Tournament in Eau Claire, Wis., the members of the forensics team hit a patch of black ice which sent the vehicle rolling off the road.

The five team members, president Brittany Samson, Kara Lemar, Peter Lindsey, Mariam Afzal and Will Freidhof, along with assistant coach Jake Imm, suffered minor injuries.

Lindsey said he suffered a laceration to the head in the accident.

“It was pretty wild; I had never been in a car accident that bad before,” he said.

Samson said she suffered severe seat belt wounds in the crash and had to be transferred to Rockford Memorial Hospital to undergo a CT scan to determine the severity of her wounds.

Lindsey said that after the accident, he was concerned with getting everyone out of the vehicle. Despite his head injury, Lindsey assisted everyone else in exiting the vehicle, Samson said.

Both said numerous other vehicles had gone off the road in the area, and Wisconsin State Police and ambulances were already nearby.

Lindsey said police responded within minutes of the accident occurring, and the injured students were transported to the hospital by ambulance.

The remaining members of the group were transported by the Wisconsin State Police to the hospital.

“We got really lucky,” Samson said. “We could have all been dead.”

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