WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson canceled public events on Tuesday after a van carrying three volunteers and a campaign staffer slid on ice in Iowa, flipped on its side and was hit by another vehicle, his campaign said.
One of the volunteers, Braden Joplin, 25, died after being taken to a trauma center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the hospital said in a statement released by the Carson campaign.
The other three people were treated and released from a hospital in Atlantic, Iowa, the statement said.
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, was traveling from South Carolina to Omaha where he planned to meet with Joplin’s family members and offer his condolences, the hospital statement said.
Carson is among a dozen Republican presidential candidates crisscrossing Iowa before the state’s Feb. 1 caucuses, the nation’s first contest to determine the party’s nominee in November’s presidential election.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Eric Walsh; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)
Photo: A campaign sign for Ben Carson is seen on the side of the road in Clear Lake, Iowa, January 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young
