Truck Plows Through Youth Soccer Game in Wichita, Killing a 6-Year-Old Boy and a Man, Injuring 11
A 34-year-old woman from Garden City, Kansas, drove her pickup across fields at the Stryker Sports Complex on Saturday afternoon, killing two spectators and sending 11 people to hospitals, Wichita police said.
WICHITA, Kan. — Two people are dead, including a 6-year-old boy, after a woman drove a pickup truck through a youth soccer game at a sports complex in Wichita on Saturday afternoon, police said.
The victims were identified by the Wichita Police Department as the boy and a 35-year-old man, who were not related. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. Eleven more people, ages 5 to 68, were taken to hospitals.
The driver, a 34-year-old woman from Garden City, Kansas, is in police custody and is cooperating with investigators, authorities said. Police have not said how fast the truck was traveling or how it got onto the field.
A witness account
Sedgwick County 911 dispatchers received multiple calls around 3:25 p.m. local time reporting that a vehicle had driven through a soccer game, Wichita police Capt. Aaron Moses said at a news conference.
A witness told local television station KWCH that a black pickup truck drove across the youth soccer fields, striking several people before stopping 100 to 200 yards farther along the fields. Officers found the truck on the field; the driver stayed with the vehicle along with two juveniles who had been inside it, police said.
The witness described dozens of emergency responders treating victims, including performing CPR, according to KWCH. Officers from the Wichita Police Department and other agencies, the Wichita Fire Department and Sedgwick County EMS responded to the scene.
What investigators still do not know
Of the 11 people hospitalized, five were children and six were adults. Ten suffered traumatic injuries ranging from bruises to extremely severe injuries, Moses said. A 61-year-old woman was also taken to the hospital for an unrelated medical condition. Police said all of the injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening, though the victims’ conditions were not immediately available.
Police said the sports complex has surveillance video and that the facility’s owners are cooperating with the investigation. Authorities said there was no longer an ongoing threat to the public, and police planned to release more updates as the investigation continued.
Reporting based on coverage by USA Today and KWCH.
