(CBS/AP) A pickup truck crammed with at least 20 people crashed into a sport utility vehicle near the Texas-Mexico border Thursday, killing three and injuring 14 others in what authorities believe was an illegal immigrant smuggling attempt.

The wreck occurred before dawn on U.S. Highway 83, the main east-west artery along the border in the Rio Grande Valley, about 15 miles west of McAllen.

"There were bodies all over the place," said Penitas interim Police Chief David Harris.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Nina Pruneda said three illegal immigrants were in custody. Pruneda said 14 others were being treated for a variety of head and back injuries in five area hospitals and one was believed to be paralyzed.

Agents hope to interview the injured once they recover, Pruneda told the Brownsville Herald.

"There's a certain time element to our investigation," she told the newspaper. "But obviously we can't just storm the hospital."

They are still trying to determine if the driver is one of those injured or if he escaped, Pruneda said.

Blood stained the grass at the corner of U.S. Highway 83 and Espanola Drive in front of L&I Funeral Home. The gold Ford pickup came to rest with its tailgate smashed against a telephone pole just feet from the funeral home's display headstones. The truck's rear passenger-side panel appeared to be the point of impact.

The Ford Expedition it crashed into had a crushed front end. Information was not immediately available on the condition of its driver. Department of Public Safety troopers were investigating the cause of the accident.

Some of the survivors told police they had been hurried into the back of the truck and had not been riding long before the accident.

"I think they had paid a fee" to be smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border, Harris said.

La Joya police spokesman Joe Cantu said the area was a major immigrant-smuggling corridor.

Lately there had been an influx of immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, but most of those involved in Wednesday's accident are believed to be Mexican, Cantu said.

"They're just coming over in waves," Cantu said. The smugglers have little regard for the safety of their passengers. Accidents where immigrants are tossed from the open beds of pickups are not unusual, Cantu said.

Looking at the smashed pick-up with an extended bed, Cantu estimated there could have been as many as 30 in it.

"They get in - it's like sardines," Cantu said. The smugglers often escape when the groups are nabbed, Cantu said. They are usually young, fit men.

"These guys run like gazelles," he said.

But the person who likely could offer the most in the way of explanation apparently got away, Miriam Medel, a spokeswoman for the Mexican Consulate in McAllen told the Herald.

"It takes us back to how coyotes really don't care about anybody but themselves," she said. "The driver is gone, as usual."

"These guys run like gazelles," he said.

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