A recent head-on collision in Mesquite has taken the lives of a 27-year-old Texas woman, her three young children and a 70-year-old man. According to authorities, the mother was headed eastbound in the westbound lanes of Interstate 20 with her children — ages 10 months, 3 and 5 — when her pickup truck collided with an SUV head-on.
The 70-year-old driver of the SUV, the mother and her three children all died at the scene of the accident. Pending the results of a police investigation, a wrongful death claim may follow.
According to the woman’s husband, he was on the phone with one of his daughters when he overheard his wife screaming that someone was trying to push her vehicle off the road. Police confirmed that someone was on the phone prior to the accident, but at this time authorities are unsure if the phone was still connected when the crash occurred.
Police also stated that they have no evidence at this time to indicate that someone was trying to force the woman off the road. A Department of Public Safety trooper said he saw the woman’s truck going the wrong way on the interstate, and the trooper tried to stop the truck but was unable to do so.
The details as to why the woman was traveling in the wrong direction are not yet known. Police will likely reconstruct the accident to officially determine who was at fault for the crash, and following that, the families of the victims may consider filing a civil lawsuit. The pain of unexpectedly losing a loved one in such a way is completely devastating, and our hearts go out to the victims’ families in their time of grief.
Source: KLTV, “Mother, 3 daughters and one other killed in I-20 crash,” May 31, 2012
