Brandon Twp.- Alcohol is believed to be a factor in an accident that critically injured a 4-year-old township boy a week ago.
Deputies responded at about 2:18 p.m., Aug. 15, to a single vehicle rollover accident in the 1100 block of Hurd Road. At the scene, they found a Ford Explorer heavily damaged in the road and a small child lying on the ground away from the road and surrounded by adults and two other children.
The boy’s mother, who was crying and tending to her injured son, said she was the driver and she didn’t know what happened. She said she knew the brakes were bad and the car started to speed up rapidly and she couldn’t stop it. She lost control and rolled the vehicle and her son was ejected out the rear driver’s side window and suffered a head injury.
According to police reports, beer cans were observed just outside and inside the vehicle, as well as a broken bottle of vodka. No child restraint seat was seen. The boy’s father said his son was buckled in a booster seat. The booster seat was found in the trunk area, behind the seat the boy was said to have been sitting in. A lap andBy Susan Bromley
Staff Writer
Brandon Twp.- Alcohol is believed to be a factor in an accident that critically injured a 4-year-old township boy a week ago.
Deputies responded at about 2:18 p.m., Aug. 15, to a single vehicle rollover accident in the 1100 block of Hurd Road. At the scene, they found a Ford Explorer heavily damaged in the road and a small child lying on the ground away from the road and surrounded by adults and two other children.
The boy’s mother, who was crying and tending to her injured son, said she was the driver and she didn’t know what happened. She said she knew the brakes were bad and the car started to speed up rapidly and she couldn’t stop it. She lost control and rolled the vehicle and her son was ejected out the rear driver’s side window and suffered a head injury.
According to police reports, beer cans were observed just outside and inside the vehicle, as well as a broken bottle of vodka. No child restraint seat was seen. The boy’s father said his son was buckled in a booster seat. The booster seat was shoulder seatbelt were buckled there as if used. The window was rolled down.
A witness said she was driving behind the Explorer on Hurd Road and the vehicle was going slow. As she began to pass it, she said the Explorer’s driver gunned it, then lost control, struck the embankment, hit a tree and rolled the vehicle three times. The 4-year-old was thrown from the vehicle and landed in the road. His parents moved him to the side of the road.
A Hurd Road resident heard the car engine rev, then the crash. He ran out to the scene, then back to his house to get his wife, a registered nurse. The boy, who still had a life preserver vest on from a trip to the beach, was crying and telling his mother his head hurt. The parents had minor injuries and two other children in the vehicle, ages 6- and 7-years-old, were uninjured.
The father told deputies the family had just left the beach where the kids were swimming and were heading home. He said he and his wife drank alcohol the night before and had a 40-ounce beer before going to the beach. They were also drinking at the beach.
Everyone in the vehicle was taken to Genesys Regional Medical Center in Grand Blanc, and the 4-year-old boy was transferred to Hurley Hospital in Flint for a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain. The boy’s mother was admitted to Genesys for observation and released pending blood results and the issuance of warrants for possible charges including operating while intoxicated causing serious injury, child endangerment, and driving on an expired license.