Crash Kills 4 Adults, 1 Child

DAYTON, Ohio- A car estimated to be going 54 mph over the speed limit struck railroad tracks in the road, went airborne and crashed early on New Year’s Day, killing all five people inside, police said.

The victims were two men, two women and a boy about 18 months old, police Lt. Larry Faulkner said. When the 1996 Pontiac Grand Prix came down, it slammed into a fire hydrant, a utility pole and a fence and was damaged so extensively, it “essentially disintegrated,“ he said.

“It’s bent in half, like a sandwich,“ Faulkner said.

A fire department rescue unit responded to help remove the victims from the vehicle, fire Lt. Joe Renacs said. All five were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, reported around 12:20 a.m. Thursday. The child was discovered last, buried at the bottom of the wreckage.

“Initially, it was ugly, when we found the child, it became sickening,“ Dayton police Lt. John Bardun told Dayton station WHIO-TV.

Investigators’ preliminary estimate was that the car was going 89 mph on a street in an industrial part of town where the posted speed limit was 35 mph, Lt. Faulkner said.

He did not know the relationships between the five victims and did not have the adults’ ages, other than that they were young people. The identities would not be released until the coroner’s office contacted the families, Faulkner said.

A person answering the phone Thursday morning at the Montgomery County coroner’s office said it would release no information until Friday.

Alcohol was suspected in the crash, though police did not have conclusive evidence of that and would have to await testing on the victims, Faulkner said.

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