A toddler was ejected and four teenage sisters of Leesburg, Florida, were reportedly killed in a single-vehicle car crash on Memorial Day, according to Orlando Sentinel. At approximately 6:40 p.m. Monday, 34-year-old Latorya Brown was travelling in her 2006 Dodge Durango, which is designed to seat eight people, with 10 other passengers near Garden Street ramp in Titusville when the left front tire disconnected, causing the vehicle to spin out of control and flip multiple times.
Three of the passengers were ejected from the vehicle, including a toddler who reportedly flew 30-feet over a barrier wall and landed on someone’s property. Emergency crews at the crash scene discovered the toddler only after hearing his cries.
Florida Highway Patrol representative Steven Montiero said, “We are determined that obviously the child was not on this side of the interstate, and to our surprise, he was actually on the other side of the barrier wall.”
“The child was ejected on that side. We located the child, who was alive and transported” to a local hospital.
Emergency crews were forced to shut down I-95 for a few hours following the fatal crash, advising drivers to take “State Road 50 as a detour.” However, the highway reopened at 10:05 p.m.
Sources say that seven passengers involved in the I-95 crash survived and were transported to hospitals in different counties, suffering from non-life threatening injuries. However, three other passengers — who officials say were sisters — were pronounced dead at the scene while another teen died the following day at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando.
According to Florida Today, the Leesburg sisters killed in the I-95 crash were identified as 15-year-old Amunya Cruz; Niashia Cruz, 13; Nadia Cruz, 10; and Jasmine Cruz, whose age was not immediately available.
A witness, who asked to remain anonymous, stated that the crash looked like a “war zone” with debris scattering over I-95. However, when he pulled his vehicle over to help the car crash victims, he realized that it wasn’t debris he saw, it was the bodies of the children that were ejected from the vehicle during the crash.
A spokeswoman, Kim Montes, for the Florida Highway Patrol said, “We’re still trying to sort out everything.” She went on to say that the “mother was so upset following the crash, but we had to tell her that four of her children had died.”
MORE: Officials: Lanes STILL closed on I-95 NB in #Titusville after crash with fatalities: https://t.co/TSza9hXHhz http://pic.twitter.com/P2xSttIYLm
— WFTV Eyewitness News (@WFTV) May 31, 2016
A woman, Gigi Riley, who has known the mother for years, stated that “this is going to be a hard one for the community. Hopefully, we’ll pull together because she’ll need help. The mother is a wonderful person, a good mother. It’s just horrible.”
Montiero added that the incident was a mass casualty scene. “We’re talking about a very violent crash with multiple people injured and taken to hospitals in different counties. Some of them were not wearing seat belts.”
“Right now we are not looking at any kind of criminal charges for the mother. There may be some traffic-related charges, but nothing criminal. She was the mother of the children who were killed. It’s very tragic.”
Family and friends were stunned after learning four sisters were tragically killed on Memorial Day.
Deaths of four sisters in Titusville crash bring tributes, prayers https://t.co/kwsnNrRYlX
— MsChat (@MsChat81) May 31, 2016
One friend wrote via Facebook that she “can’t sleep this really hurts me to know these kids… praying for you Latorya Brown My heart hurts so bad I pray God encamp his Angel’s around you all and your family.”
Another friend, Kelsey Henson, wrote via Facebook that she “couldn’t even put words together. Just prayers and more prayers.”
After the I-95 car crash, a relative stated that the surviving passengers are doing okay, and they are expected to make a full recovery.
[Image via Getty Images / Thomas Lohnes]
Toddler Ejected, Four Teenage Sisters Killed When SUV Carrying 11 Passengers Crash On I-95 is an article from: The Inquisitr News
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