An adolescent boy, just 14 years old, tragically lost his life while two other teens are in critical condition after a utility vehicle, suspected to be stolen, crashed into a tree in a rural part of Victoria.
Authorities reported that the incident occurred on the Calder Highway near the intersection of Woosang-Yeungroon Road in Woosang, located to the northwest of Melbourne, shortly before 10 AM.
The driver, aged 18, along with another 14-year-old passenger, were discovered trapped within the wreckage. Emergency teams had to extricate them from the vehicle before airlifting them to a hospital for urgent medical care.
Investigations suggest that the vehicle was taken the previous night from the nearby area of Mildura, which is where the teens reportedly hail from.
Detective Sergeant Ashley Pendrick described the aftermath as a “high impact” collision that left the occupants “severely trapped.”
“It was quite a challenge for rescue personnel to extract the victims, and encountering such a scene early in the day must have been incredibly daunting for them,” he remarked.
Police don’t know how fast the ute was travelling or how it lost control.
“We’re looking at everything, we will look at speed, we will look at the road conditions. We will look at the manner of driving,” he said.
There were no witnesses and the first notification police received about the crash was from the vehicle itself.
Pendrick warned young people to “know there’s consequences for their actions”.
“When you look at incidents like this that are totally devastating you just plead to those kids that they’re not playing games, there’s real consequences,” he said.
