A driver’s failure to stop at an intersection caused a Hall County wreck that left one child dead six people injured, according to a Georgia State Patrol report released Thursday.
Geovanna Cassola Juarez, 33, was traveling east on Sloan Mill Road near Gainesville on Tuesday when she went through a stop sign and was T-boned by a Chevrolet cargo van traveling south on Poplar Springs Road, the report said.
The van then collided head-on with a Hyundai Tuscon that was traveling north on Poplar Springs Road, the report said. Ashley Marie Sosebee, the Tuscon driver, had already hit her brakes when she saw the first crash, the report said.
A 6-year-old child, Angel Juarez Herrera, died. Juarez and three other Herrera children, who were traveling in the Mazda, were injured, the report said.
Sosebee, 26, and the cargo van driver, 41-year-old James Lee Cripps, also suffered non-life-threatening injuries, the report said.
Juarez, of Gainesville, was charged with failure to yield, the report said.
Juarez “also stated she saw headlights approaching from her left and then she didn’t remember anything else, ” the report said. “Driver’s 2 and 3 stated that vehicle 1 entered the intersection without stopping at the stop sign at the end on Sloan Mill Road.”
The cargo van struck the Mazda’s left side, rotating it clockwise and sending it more than 126 feet onto a sloped yard, the report said. The van then struck the Hyundai, spinning it clockwise, the report said. Sosebee said she saw the initial crash and managed to get her car stopped before her own collision.
The uncle of the children involved in the crash told Channel 2 Action News that a 16-year-old girl had a severe concussion, an 8-year-old girl was in critical condition with a broken pelvic bone, and a 5-year-old girl had severe brain trauma. He said Juarez had a broken back and ribs.
The 8-year-old and the 5-year-old were were taken to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, Channel 2 said. The others were being treated at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville.
