A 13-year-old boy, Ricky Siemens, has been recognized as the driver in a deadly crash in Texas, Thursday night.
The boy, identified in a Daily Mail report, was illegally driving a Dodge pickup truck with his father, Henrich Siemens, reportedly heading to pick up a new car. According to National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg, the truck had a spare wheel in place of its left front tire. The spare tire blew out, causing the truck to swerve, head-on into the van carrying several university golfers and their coach.
While the cause of the crash is still to be determined, Sgt. Steven Blanco of Texas DPS informed The Post that cops have ordered toxicology and other forensics reports.
“This was clearly a high-speed collision,” Landsberg stated, before adding they were unsure how fast either vehicle was traveling at the time. The legal age to drive in Texas is 16.
According to authorities, both the boy and his father did not survive the collision.
The crash killed nine people, including six members of a New Mexico university’s golf teams who were traveling for an upcoming tournament: Mauricio Sanchez, 19, Travis Garcia, 19, Jackson Zinn, 22, Karisa Raines, 21, Laci Stone, 18, and Tiago Sousa, 18. Their coach, Tyler James, driver of the van, was also killed in the crash.
Two students, Dayton Price, 19, and Hayden Underhill, 20, survived the crash and were airlifted to a hospital. According to officials, the two are in stable condition.
The accident is still under investigation.