(TrueTrendNews.com) – Two young children were killed over the weekend after a drunk driver plowed into a birthday party.
According to video evidence and information shared by police, more than a dozen people were injured and two kids tragically killed at the Swan Boat Club in Newport, Michigan on Saturday April 20. The incident occurred around three in the afternoon, when a driver sped towards the structure and stopped once it was 25 feet inside.
The event taking place was a birthday celebration for a child. Two kids in attendance—a brother and sister aged five and eight, respectively—were pronounced dead at the scene. Fifteen other people at the party were injured, with nine of those wounded suffering life-threatening casualties.
In addition to the two dead kids, three other children and six adults were immediately transported to local hospitals. Other bystanders who were not critically injured later sought medical assistance on their own, authorities said. As of Monday, two days after the crash, two victims—a 31-year-old woman and an 11-year-old boy—remain in critical condition.
On Saturday night, the Monroe County Sheriff’s office held a press conference featuring Sheriff Troy Goodnough, who was visibly emotional while updating the community on the tragedy. He explained that first responders at the scene described it as “extremely chaotic” with intense emotions released by victims and those who witnessed the crash. Goodnough described the tragedy as a “horrific incident.”
The suspect, 66-year-old Marshella Chidester, was arraigned on Tuesday April 23 and is facing two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of driving while intoxicated and causing serious injury, and two counts of driving while intoxicated causing death. Chidester was granted a $1.5 million bond that requires her to be monitored and tested for substance abuse.
While her attorney blamed her epilepsy as the cause of the crash and said she had only had one glass of wine that day, prosecutors have stated that the suspect’s blood alcohol level “significantly” surpassed the “legal limit.”
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