A Child Protective Services caseworker and two foster children died in a wreck in Van Zandt County, east of Dallas, on Tuesday night, officials said.

Connie Wells, 61, was driving three foster children when her vehicle was struck head-on about 7 p.m., CPS spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales said.

Wells and two of the children, Elijah Tuma, 10, and Adam Tuma, 14, died at the scene. Their sister, Issiebella, 12, was flown to Children's Medical Center in Dallas, where she remained hospitalized Wednesday in critical condition, Gonzales said.

The crash happened on Texas 19, northwest of Edgewood, about an hour east of Dallas, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Jessie Michael Brown, 19, was driving south in a 2006 Dodge Dakota pickup truck and started passing vehicles in a no-passing zone and hit Wells' 2018 Chevrolet Cruze head-on. Brown and a 16-year-old passenger were taken to a hospital in stable condition.

Wells had been a CPS caseworker for 10 years.

"It is difficult to convey our shock and sadness from this terrible tragedy," Hank Whitman, the commissioner of the state Department of Family and Protective Services, said in a statement. "The loss of these young people, coupled with the loss of one of our devoted front-line CPS workers, is almost too much to bear."