A 56-year-old woman from Ames, Iowa, died during a crash on Interstate 35 Wednesday morning.

According to Minnesota State Patrol reports, at about 8:40 a.m. a 2004 Dodge pickup was traveling southbound on Interstate 35 when it went through the median near mile marker 11 and struck a 2005 Toyota van that was traveling northbound.

The van spun into a 2007 Freightliner semi that was also traveling northbound, when the semi went down into an embankment and ended up in a field, reports stated.

Barbara Finch, the driver of the van, was killed. Her passenger Erin Finch, 25, received non-lifethreatening injuries.

The roads were icy at the time of the incident.

Mile 11 is near Exit 11, the interchange with Freeborn County Road 46 where many truckers come to stop at Albert Lea truck stops.

Officials closed both northbound lanes of I-35 from U.S. Highway 65 to Freeborn County Road 46 for about 45 minutes, after which the inside lane was opened to drivers.

The outer lane was still closed for a portion of the day for state troopers to reconstruct how the wreck happened.

In the pickup, driver Karl N. Grubbs, 47, of Rimrock, Ariz., received minor injuries and passenger Donna Grubbs, 63, also of Rimrock, received non-lifethreatening injuries, according to the State Patrol report.

The driver of the semi, Robert D. Brandt, 64, of Litchfield, received no apparent injury, the report stated.

It has been a particularly bloody year on the highways and byways of Freeborn County. The death is the 14th traffic fatality on 2008. Last year there were two.

The high numbers of traffic deaths in 2008 have law enforcement and highway engineers concerned.

The 13th death of 2008 was on Main Street in Myrtle, when a 3-year-girl was runover Tuesday. The 12th was on Dec. 4, when an 80-year-old Nebraska man died when the 2000 Chevy pickup he was riding in lost control, entered a ditch and struck a tree on an icy part of Interstate 35 west of Geneva. The 11th happened on Veterans Day, when a woman lost control of her 2004 Chevy Suburban on northbound I-35 near Exit 8 when it was struck by a 2005 Dodge truck.

Three of Freeborn County’s fatalities occurred at the site of a washout on Freeborn County Road 34 in Oakland Township in June.

Two others took place as a result of a head-on collision on southbound Interstate 35 near the state line after a pickup crossed the median and hit another pickup in August.