A two-vehicle crash in Arlington Tuesday evening, December 21, resulted in serious injuries for a young family of four. The cause of the accident is allegedly due to an intoxicated driver.
The Fort Worth family of four was westbound on I-20 in their Toyota Tundra when a Mazda MX5 approached them from behind and struck their vehicle at approximately 8:20 pm. The impact caused the family’s truck to roll over a guardrail and land on its side close to the interchange at Highway 360.
According to CBS DFW, the driver of the Mazda, 25-year-old Tyler Hampton, walked away from the crash with no serious injuries. He was arrested “on three counts of intoxication assault with serious bodily injury.” He is in custody at the Arlington city jail under a $45,000 bond.
Twenty-six-year-old Joshua Pierite, the driver of the Toyota Tundra, was pinned inside the vehicle after the crash and had to be extracted by first responders. He was taken to the hospital suffering from a crushed femur.
Brooklyn Pierite, 22, was riding in the front passenger seat at the time of the collision. Her sister, Victoria Burnam, reported to Fox 4 News, “My sister said she just had a feeling to turn around, and when she turned around, she saw the driver coming. And she immediately unbuckled herself to try to jump on top of her kids.”
Brooklyn was hospitalized with broken ribs and a collapsed lung but has since been released.
The couple’s two children were buckled up in the back seat of the truck. Four-year-old Aubrey Alleman sustained minor injuries, but two-year-old Mi’lania Pierite suffered critical injuries. She was airlifted to Cook Children’s Medical Center with bleeding on the brain. She is currently in a coma and on a ventilator, according to Fox News.
“I think that it ejected my niece’s car seat out of the vehicle,” Burnaman said.
Police reported that Hampton was driving erratically when he struck the pickup truck. According to Tim Ciesco of the Arlington Police Department, police performed a series of roadside sobriety tests on Hampton before taking him into custody.
“We probably sound like a broken record when we say don’t drink and drive,” Ciesco said. “And the sad truth of the matter is, we have to keep saying it because we continue to see people making poor decisions.”