2-year-old killed, 4 family members in critical condition after wrong-way driver slams into their car on freeway
A 2-year-old child has been killed and their entire family has been left hanging on to life in critical condition after their car was struck by a driver going the wrong way on a freeway.
The incident occurred at approximately 3 a.m. on Sunday morning on the Eastex Freeway at North Loop 610 in Houston, Texas, when police say that a woman was driving south in the northbound lanes of the freeway when she collided with another vehicle containing a family of five, according to ABC News’ Houston station KTRK.
A 2-year-old child was killed in the accident and the mother, father and two other young children, whose ages and identities are not currently known, were immediately transported to a local area hospital where all of them remain in critical condition.
The wrong-way driver was also killed in the crash and police say it is unclear how long the woman had been driving in the wrong lane for or if there were any signs that she had been under the influence.
“A very tragic, a very dangerous scene,” a spokesperson from the Houston Police Department told KTRK in an interview following the accident. “We don’t know how long the person was traveling on the wrong side of the freeway. We will try to figure that out if we find any cameras or anything.”
Authorities also told KTRK that a police officer who just happened to be on the other side of the freeway at that time actually saw the driver headed the wrong way just before the crash happened but were unable to get to them in time to prevent the accident.
Sunday’s early morning crash was the second fatal wrong-way accident in just nine days, according to KTRK, after three people, including a 2-year-old boy as well as both drivers, were killed on the Westpark Tollway in an eerily similar collision involving a wrong-way driver in the early hours of the morning on July 9.
The investigation into the circumstances surrounding Sunday's tragic accident is ongoing.
