Crystal Lake police were investigating an early-morning crash that killed two men Tuesday and injured three others.
According to Crystal Lake Police Lt. Howard Parth, the one-car crash on Pingree Road, south of Grandview Drive, occurred about 2:30 a.m. when a southbound Chevrolet Celebrity smashed into a utility pole on the west side of the road.
Parth said the driver of the car and his front-seat passenger were pronounced dead at the scene.
Two of the three injured passengers were taken to Northern Illinois Medical Center in McHenry, and one, Jose Vicente Cabanas, 25, of Crystal Lake was subsequently flown to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where his condition had been upgraded from guarded to fair.
Police declined to identify the second passenger.
The third passenger, Cristobal Pelayo, 18, was being treated at Memorial Medical Center in Woodstock.
McHenry County Deputy Coroner Bob Locke identified the two dead men as Hector Loyo Salazar, the driver, and Pascual Martinez Portilla.
Police, however, said they had difficulty making a positive identification of the victims. The problems, police said, were that none of the occupants had identification and none of the survivors spoke English.
Parth could offer no immediate explanation for how the crash occurred. Although slippery road conditions were reported in the area later in the morning, “the road was dry at the time of the incident,” Parth said.
