In a Texas crash that left nine people dead and two critically injured, a 13-year-old driver was behind the wheel.
This is a heartbreaking story. According to a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, a 13-year-old was behind the wheel of the pickup truck that collided with a van in West Texas, killing nine people.
The boy was driving his father’s Dodge pickup when the front left tire, which was a spare, blew out. The truck plowed into a bus carrying eight University of the Southwest golf students after crossing the center line into oncoming traffic at a high rate of speed.
Regrettably, the 13-year-old, his father, six golfers, and their coach were all killed. Another two people are in critical condition.
Golf coach Tyler James, 26, of Hobbs, New Mexico, and players Mauricio Sanchez, 19, of Mexico; Travis Garcia, 19, of Pleasanton, Texas; Jackson Zinn, 22, of Westminster, Colorado; Karisa Raines, 21, of Fort Stockton, Texas; Laci Stone, 18, of Nocona, Texas; and Tiago Sousa, 18, of Portugal were among the dead, according to the state agency.
Henrich Siemans, 38, of Seminole County, Texas, and a 13-year-old kid who had been riding with him in a 2007 Dodge 2500 pickup truck were both slain.
Dayton Price, 19, of Mississauga, Ontario, and Hayden Underhill, 20, of Amherstview, Ontario, was among those badly injured aboard the van. Both were flown to Lubbock’s University Medical Center by helicopter.
Provost Ryan Tipton of the University of the Southwest said on Thursday that the two injured students “are both stable and recuperating and making more and more progress every day.”
