Mother Recalls Horror as Truck Plowed Through Soccer Game

A Kansas mother has described the horrifying moment a pickup truck tore across a neighboring soccer field while she watched her young son play on Saturday.

Erica Case was attending her nine-year-old son’s youth soccer match at Wichita’s Stryker Sports Complex shortly before 3 p.m. when an unidentified 34-year-old woman drove a pickup onto one of the fields. The crash killed two people and injured 10 others.

Case said the game was at halftime when she heard an engine roar, followed by a series of loud impacts that sounded like repeated explosions.

‘I saw the truck hitting things. I saw debris flying in the air,’ she told NBC News. ‘I don’t know if it was a cone, a chair or a person, but you could see matter flying as the truck was barreling through the soccer field at a decent rate of speed.’

Case said the sound and images from the crash are likely to stay with her.

‘The moment that I realized that it wasn’t gunshots, that that was bodies, I lost it,’ Case recalled. ‘I lost it because it wasn’t just adults, it was also children.’

Six-year-old Cole Adrian and 35-year-old Nicholas Schafer died in the crash. Police said 10 other people, including five children, were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not life-threatening.

In the chaotic minutes after the deadly collision, Case said another boy’s mother began yelling that she was a nurse and needed to reach the injured victims.

Case offered to look after the woman’s son, then led him away from the scene and toward safety as people rushed to help.

Emergency crews arrived roughly 10 minutes later, Case said. Until then, bystanders and other good Samaritans treated the victims and tried to assist however they could.

‘There are a lot of silent heroes that I know experienced much worse that I did, having to do mouth-to-mouth or CPR on somebody that’d been ran over by a truck.’

David Griekspoor said he was also at the city-operated sports complex with his nephew, who was playing soccer, when he witnessed the truck crash through the area.

‘It sounded like small gunfire – bap, bap, bap,’ he recalled.

Griekspoor said he initially could not determine what was causing the noise. Then he spotted the pickup truck.

‘You look up, and you just see the truck going through a line of people,’ he said. While his brother and sister-in-law moved toward nearby children to check on them, Griekspoor grabbed his nephew and ‘backed out of there.’

Another mother, Vanessa Trammell, who was at the complex watching her 13-year-old son’s game, said she saw the truck drive across the neighboring field near the sidelines, striking several people.

‘It was pure panic,’ she told CNN of the chaos that ensued. ‘I didn’t know what was going on – just that people were being hit.

‘I’m pretty sure I probably screamed, but absolutely, just pure panic was going through me.’ 

She also noted that her son’s coach was one of the people that ran to help the victims, and a youth soccer player only identified as Isaac said his father was one of the people who rushed to remove the driver from the vehicle.

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‘My dad went to the truck [and] took the person out of the truck so that they don’t hit any more people,’ he told KWCH.  

‘I’m shocked that he did that ’cause if he didn’t do that, maybe the car wouldn’t have stopped and more people could’ve got hit,’ the boy added.

The driver, only identified as a 34-year-old mother from Garden City, was released without charges on Sunday afternoon pending a toxicology test and a mechanical examination of the vehicle, according to Wichita Police. 

Investigators have yet to elaborate further on why the woman was released and they have not commented further on whether they believe she was intoxicated, if she may have suffered a medical episode, or if there was a problem with the car she was driving.

Investigators also do not know how fast the truck was going or how it managed to get on to the field, Police Captain Aaron Moses said.

But a witness told local television station 12 News that the ‘black pickup truck came plowing through the youth soccer fields hitting multiple people before stopping 100-200 yards down the fields.’

The driver had originally been parked in a space near the soccer fields before her vehicle drove onto the field at approximately 3.25pm, police said. 

Two of the driver’s children had been in the back of her truck at the time of the incident, police said. She also had a third child who had been playing in a game on a different field at the complex.

Witnesses claim the driver shouted, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, what have I done?’ when she was pulled from the vehicle by bystanders at the event, according to the New York Post. 

The driver remained at the scene and was subsequently taken into custody.

Investigators have since interviewed more than 30 witnesses, including the two children that were in the vehicle at the time of the crash, and have questioned the driver. 

They are now asking anyone with video footage of the incident to share it with them.

In a statement on Sunday, Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan shared his condolences with the victims’ families.

‘Our hearts are with the families of Adrian and Nicholas as they face an unimaginable loss. What should have been a day of children playing soccer and families spending time together ended in tragedy,’ Sullivan said. 

‘We are also thinking about those who were injured, their loved ones and everyone who witnessed what happened. We know this tragedy has affected many people throughout our community, and we want those families to know they are not alone.’

Sullivan added: ‘Our officers and investigators will continue working to understand exactly what happened.’ 

Wichita Mayor Lily Wu also said she’s ‘heartbroken’ and advised people to avoid the area, adding: ‘My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected, especially the children and families involved.’

President Donald Trump even commented on the tragedy Monday night during a campaign rally in nearby Park City.

‘To all victims and their families: May God be with you,’ he said. ‘And we want to get to the bottom of what happened.’ 

The tragedy unfolded at a venue popular with young soccer players and their families, turning what should have been an ordinary Saturday afternoon of sport into an emergency.

The Kansas State High School Activities Association said play has been suspended for the flag football state championship following the deadly accident.