CLAY COUNTY – Three people, including two girls visiting from Canada during spring break, were killed in two accidents last week.

A 62-year-old man from Green Cove Springs was killed on U.S. Highway 17 in a wrong-way head-on collision on Fleming Island on March 17. The Florida Highway Patrol said the man was driving the wrong way on U.S. 17 when he slammed into a car driven by a 42-year-old man from Glen St. Mary. That man suffered critical injuries.

On Saturday, Madeline Kort, 13, and Joni Kort, 10, died at the intersection of County Road 218 and U.S. Highway 301 in Maxville when a cement truck slammed into the back of their minivan and pushed it into the back of an SUV.

The accident happened at 6 a.m. on March 19, the Florida Highway Patrol reported.

The minivan was being driven by Pieter Kort, a lawyer from Belleville, Ontario, Canada, according to Kort’s law office partner Ed Kafka. Hannah Kort, 16, and the mother, Jamie Kort, were taken to an Intensive Care Unit in critical condition, while Kort and his son, Ethan, also suffered injuries.

The SUV and minivan were accelerating northbound through the intersection following a light change when a cement pumping truck rear-ended both of them. A portion of the Kort’s minivan was wedged under the front of the truck.

There were five people in the SUV, FHP said. The driver was a 72-year-old man from Gainesville and the other four passengers, including a 3-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, were from Fort Collins, Colorado. Nobody in the SUV was seriously injured.

The driver of the cement truck, a 48-year-old man from Gainesville, wasn’t hurt.