Monkey Truck Accident: A vehicle crashes with 100 animals in Danville, Pennsylvania; Police say the account was set up after all had escaped

The video on display came from an earlier report.

Pennsylvania State Police say several monkeys escaped following Friday’s collision. But only one person was not counted until Saturday morning, prompting the Pennsylvania Game Commission and other agencies to search for it amid severe weather.

Kristen Nordland, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an email Saturday evening that all 100 Cynomolcus macaque monkeys had been counted. Three people died after being euthanized.

The email did not explain why all three were euthanized or how all were accounted for. But Nordland said the euthanasia was done humanely under the guidance of the American Veterinary Association.

Police said the monkeys were sent to the CDC-approved isolation facility after arriving Friday morning at Kennedy Airport in New York from the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius. The Atlanta-based CDC said it was providing “technical assistance” to the state police in Pennsylvania.

The collision occurred Friday on a state highway near the Interstate 80 exit in Montserrat County, Pennsylvania, trooper Andrea Belacic told Sunbury’s Daily Item newspaper.

The location of the isolated facility and the explicitly imposed type of research on monkeys are not clear, but Cynomolcus monkeys are often used in clinical studies. An article published in 2015 on the website of the National Center for Biotechnology Information noted that they are the most widely used primary in early toxicology studies.

Earlier, the troopers tweeted not to search or catch any monkeys and said, “Anyone who sees or finds the monkey is requested not to approach, catch or contact the monkey. Please call 911 immediately.”

Trooper Lauren Leisure said, “Because it’s not a pet, and it’s in an unknown area, it’s hard to say how they will behave if approached by a human.”

Leisure said the state police guarded the scene for the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the CDC.

The condition of the motorists involved in the accident was not clear or it was not immediately clear if any quotes were provided.

Michelle Fallon, an eyewitness to the crash, told Bloomberg’s Press Enterprise newspaper that she spoke to the pickup driver and a passenger after the crash. The driver appeared to be distracted and the passenger thought he might have injured his legs, he said.

As troops searched for the monkeys, handcuffs and pistols were strewn across the road on Friday. Valley Township firefighters tried to locate the animals using thermal imaging, and the helicopter helped, according to Bloomberg’s Press Enterprise newspaper.

As the pickup was heading west on the I-80, it tried to make an immediate return after landing at the Danville exit and drove the other way, the newspaper reported.

Fallen told Press Enterprise that he was behind the pickup when the dump truck collided with the passenger side, tearing the front panel of the trailer and sending out more than a dozen crates.

Fallon said she and another motorist who was parked to help were standing near the scene, and the other driver said he saw a cat running across the road.

When Fallon peeked into a box, she saw a little monkey looking back at her, she told the newspaper.

“They’re monkeys,” she told the other driver.