School zone wreck leaves mother, child with critical injuries at SHS
Sept. 26--A fender-bender near Sabine High School set off a chain-reaction Wednesday morning, a series of four wrecks that ended one with driver being flown to Tyler by helicopter, her condition critical; her son was transported to a Dallas-area hospital later.
The woman suffered severe injuries to her arm and head while she was standing outside her vehicle on FM1252, the child in her arms after the first wreck, when a second impact struck them after the initial, light collision about 7:35 a.m.
Protecting her child and thrown by the follow-up impact, "She looked like she was (hurt) pretty bad. She looked like she was trying to move, and we told her don't move," witness Erica Craig said. "It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen
"She couldn't talk. I just kept whispering in her ear, 'It's going to be OK.'"
While that woman was being air-lifted, the child -- a boy approximately 3 yearsold -- was being transported by ambulance to Good Shepherd Medical Center in Longview.
"I think the mom took most of the hit," Craig said. "It was just horrible."
Two other children were transported by ambulance from the scene, Sabine ISD Superintendent Stacey Bryce reported. They're apparently school-age daughters of the injured woman, accompanying their young sibling: "They certainly have nonlife threatening injuries."
According to Bryce, the domino-effect incidents occurred in the eastbound lane of FM 1252 on the campus' west side, beginning when the as-yet unidentified woman's Ford SUV struck a Chevrolet Suburban that was waiting to turn into the high school.
"The first one was a fender-bender," Bryce explained, a high school student behind the wheel of the Suburban.
The driver of the SUV, son in her arms, immediately went to check on the student in the Chevy and was heading backed to her Ford when a F150 pick-up truck, driven by a high school student, struck the woman's white sports utility vehicle.
"A car came over the hill there and hit her car and knocked her car. She was carrying a little boy. Her car was hit from behind which hit her and the little boy," Bryce said, suggesting the driver may have been blinded by the rising sun. "When the second car (the Ford SUV) was struck in the rear it not only hit the mother and child, it hit the fourth car," a Ford sedan driven by a Sabine ISD parent.
Soon after, a maroon pick-up truck crestedt the hill as well, an adult driver at the wheel.
"Basically, trying to avoid the other cars, it just hit the others from behind or the side," Bryce said. "The problem is the sun. It's very difficult to see at that time of morning because of the sun."
Craig, too, suspects the rising sun may have blinded at least some of the drivers involved in the incident. The stretch of roadway is a school zone, active at the time of collisions with the speed limit capped at 30 miles-per-hour.
"It all happened so fast," she said, pulling up to the site at the moment the mother and child were struck in the second impact. "They were hit and they were down. People just started running over there."
A medical transport helicopter landed in the field immediately east of the high school and transported the woman to Tyler's Trinity Mother Frances Hospital.
No one in any other vehicle was transported by ambulance, Bryce confirmed.
Texas Department of Public Safety investigators are still on the scene investigating the accident, Sabine Volunteer Fire Department Chief Richard Sisk said.
"From what I understand, the children are stable, being treated for minor injuries," he confirmed, "but the mom is critical."
Copyright 2015 - Kilgore News Herald, Texas
