Paola ? Miami County authorities are investigating two accidents that occurred within minutes of each other, resulting in two deaths.

Undersheriff Mark Schmidt says in a news release that the first accident on U.S. 169 Thursday in southern Miami County occurred when a car slid on an icy highway, down an embankment and into a pond. One woman was able to escape, but the driver, 53-year-old Mary J. Crawford, of Garnett, was trapped and died at the scene.

The passenger told officers that as she was swimming to land, she heard a collision. In that accident, a car crossed the center line and hit another vehicle. Sixty-six-year-old Mary C. Stussey, the driver of the second car, died. Her hometown was not immediately available. Four people in the first car were hospitalized.