A MnDOT traffic camera along I-694 in Arden Hills shows the aftermath of a terrible crash that took two lives Friday.

“Just still kind of shocked,” declared Pat Santavy of New Brighton. “They were kind of a fatherly and motherly figure to me.”

Friends and neighbors of Curtis and Karin O’Connor say they were stunned to learn the couple had been killed in that crash.

“I’m not sure it’s sunken in yet. Shock and disbelief,” says Tom Pesall, a longtime friend. “You don’t know what to think of tragic situations like this. That friends that were here one minute are gone the next, and just disbelief.”

The State Patrol says just before nine o’clock Friday morning, the couple’s Chevy Malibu was entering the westbound interstate from Snelling Avenue when an SUV swerved into their car, forcing it into the left lane.

Authorities say a tractor-trailer then hit their car broadside with deadly force.  
 
“Early morning wasn’t icy on the roads or anything so — just going to miss them,” Santavy says.

Authorities now say alcohol was detected on the driver of the SUV, who was booked into the Ramsey County Jail Friday night.

That driver, identified as 31-year-old Luis Tipantuna of Minneapolis, is in custody on suspicion of criminal vehicular homicide.

“You have a lot of tolerance for a lot of things in this life,” Pesall says. “But when someone takes someone else’s life through a bad choice they made, that’s difficult.”

Friends and neighbors say the O’Connors, both in their seventies, were like the mother and father of their New Brighton neighborhood.

Acts of kindness that meant so much.

Like watching the street when kids were playing ball, bringing food to a neighbor during the pandemic or sending a recent Valentine’s Day note to a woman next door.

These are just a few reasons why many are devastated by this loss.

“She was a really sweet lady, and he was a really nice guy,” Santavy recalls. “They talked about moving and I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t want them to move away.”

Authorities say the semi-driver was hospitalized but is expected to survive.

Meanwhile, the O’Connor’s neighbors say they’re still trying to process a tragic loss.

“I’ve known Curt for 25 years,” Pesall says quietly. “Most important thing to them was their faith, their family, and their friends. You couldn’t go wrong by knowing Curt and Karin.”