At least 12 hurt in W.Va. when deck collapses during party

GAULEY BRIDGE, W.Va. -- A deck collapsed at a home during a Fourth of July party, injuring at least 12 people, officials said.

As many as 25 people were on the deck when it fell late Friday as the town was putting on a fireworks display, officials said.

"I guess they were all out there on the deck watching," Shane Wheeler, EMS chief at Jan-Care Ambulance Service in Beckley, said Saturday.

Victims fell 10 to 20 feet, depending on where they were on the deck that stood over a hillside, Wheeler said.

The accident at Gauley Bridge, about 25 miles southeast of Charleston, was the second in West Virginia in the past two months. In May, 17 people celebrating the end of the school year were injured when a second-story deck at a house near Marshall University in Huntington collapsed.

Last weekend, a third-story porch collapsed in Chicago, killing 13 people and injured at least 57.

A total of 12 people were injured at Gauley Bridge, most with cuts and fractures, Wheeler said.

One victim had a head injury, said Betty Craze, director of the emergency department at Montgomery General Hospital.

Most were treated and released, but three were taken to Charleston Area Medical Center, where an operator said Saturday she had no information on their conditions.