LAKE HALLIE, WIS. – Three girls and a woman who were part of a Scout troop collecting garbage along a county road were killed in a horrific Wisconsin crash in Chippewa County on Saturday morning, officials said.

The driver of the van that hit the group, a 21-year-old man from the nearby town of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, escaped from the scene but later returned, according to Sgt. . Daniel Sokup of the Lake Hallie Police Department. A fourth girl who was hit by the van remained hospitalized in critical condition Saturday night.

The girls were collecting trash in a ditch along County Road P near the highway. 29 overpass at 11:40 am when a black Ford F-150 pickup truck left the north-south road and hit the group, police said. According to several sources, the driver then took the speed of an intensive hunt to the Lake Hallie police.

The children were scouts at Halmstad Elementary School in Chippewa Falls, according to Chareti-Mae Curtis' aunt, who was in the ditch at the time but was not touched.

Chareti-Mae, 9, was picking up litter with about six other girls, said this girl during a telephone interview on Saturday night by her father's family. They started at 10:15, she says.

They all wore safety vests and were accompanied by several adults, including her grandfather, she said.

Then a black van hit the ditch directly to the group, she said. Most girls were hit.

"The truck has almost hit me," Chareti-Mae said. "And it did not stop. It's not like they turned around and went out and said, "Oh my God, what did I do?"

She continued, "They continued, and then left."

Another group of Girl Scouts was also near the overpass, but in a different location, she said.

Chareti-Mae and another girl in the group received blankets from neighbors, she said.

Saturday night, she was with her aunt, Joslyn Curtis, at Curtis' Eau Claire.

"The next thing my stepfather knew, little girls were flying everywhere," Joslyn Curtis said. "Then there were helicopters and ambulances and police."

"Then the police asked my father-in-law and my 9-year-old niece to identify the bodies of the other girls on the side of the road," she said.

A neighbor who lives near the scene of the accident said he saw a group of about 10 scouts walking along the pavement wearing lime green vests around 11am on Saturday.

Shortly after, he says "all hell has lost losing."

The man, who refused to give his full name, said he had never heard of the truck but had seen rescue vehicles and helicopters running in that direction. He assumed the worst, he said.

"This intersection is simply terrible," said the long-time Chippewa Falls neighbor on the 45 km / h two-lane highway.

"It's dangerous," he said, adding that he had witnessed many accidents. "People are flying over the hill."

Cecily Spallees, a personal care attendant in a group home near the accident site, also said drivers routinely drove along that stretch of road, which was rapidly going from 55 to 35 mph.

"I always tell one of my residents that he should not walk down this street at night," Spallees said, adding there was no streetlight. "This is not safe."

Officials from the Wisconsin National Patrol closed the area to recreate the crash Saturday night, Sokup said.

"The Lake Hallie Police Service would like to express our deepest condolences to the families involved," Sokup wrote in a statement.

Police in Chippewa Falls, Chippewa County Sheriff's Department, assisted in the accident.