Katharina Buczek
On Tuesday, March 15, at about 8:00 p.m., a horrific head-on collision in Texas left nine people dead.
The victims included six University of the Southwest men’s and women’s golf team members, their coach, a thirteen-year-old boy, and his father.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a statement shortly after describing the details of the accident.
The university students and their coach had been traveling northbound in a van along Farm-to-Market Road following a golf tournament when a southbound pickup truck crossed into the opposing lane and collided head-on with the students.
“Both vehicles caught on fire and were destroyed. Both pickup truck occupants, the coach, and six students in the van were fatally injured. The two remaining students in the van were seriously injured,” the NTSB said.
However, the board initially reported that the thirteen-year-old victim had been driving the pickup truck with his father in the passenger seat.
As of this past Thursday, though, the NTSB has issued a corrected report indicating that the father was, in fact, behind the wheel.
“National Transportation Safety Board investigators have reviewed DNA testing results provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety and found that the driver of the pickup truck was not the thirteen-year-old male in the truck, but his thirty-eight-year-old father,” the NTSB said in a new press release.
Not only did DNA results indicate the father was responsible for the fatal crash, though. Toxicological testing also revealed traces of methamphetamine in the driver’s blood.
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