A Kansas mother watching her son’s youth soccer game has described the horror of seeing a pickup truck tear across a nearby field on Saturday.
Erica Case was attending her nine-year-old son’s game at the Stryker Sports Complex in Wichita shortly before 3 p.m. when an unidentified 34-year-old driver crashed into one of the fields. Two people were killed and 10 others were injured.
Case said halftime had just begun when she heard an engine revving, followed by several loud “boom” sounds.
“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 of the crash is 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 Wichita soccer complex crash. Police said 10 other people, including five children, were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.
An unidentified 34-year-old woman crashed her pickup truck into a soccer field in Wichita, Kansas on Saturday, killing two people and leaving 10 others injured
Shocked parents at the sports complex took out their phones and captured the scene
In the chaotic moments after the deadly collision, Case said another mother began shouting that she was a nurse and needed to reach the victims.
Case offered to watch the woman’s son and guided the boy to safety as people tried to respond to the crash.
Emergency crews arrived about 10 minutes later, according to Case. Before they reached the sports complex, Good Samaritans had already rushed in to help those who were injured.
DON’T MISS: Ewan McGregor shares the movie he dislikes the most – NewsFinale
“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.”
Vanessa Trammell, another mother who was at the complex for her 13-year-old son’s game, said she saw the pickup cross the neighboring field near the sidelines and strike several people.
“It was pure panic,” she told CNN about the scene. “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.”
Trammell added that her son’s coach was among those who ran toward the victims to offer assistance.
Cole Adrian, six, was killed in the crash at the sports complex on Saturday
Nicholas Schafer, 35, was also killed in the horrific crash. His family has declined to speak to the media at this time
Emergency responders wheel a stretcher near the scene of the horrific incident, which saw multiple casualties rushed to area hospitals following the deadly crash
David Griekspoor further told how he was at the city-run sports complex with his nephew, another soccer player, when he witnessed the crash.
‘It sounded like small gunfire – bap, bap, bap,’ he recounted.
At first, Griekspoor said, it wasn’t clear what was making the sound until he noticed the truck.
‘You look up, and you just see the truck going through a line of people,’ he recounted, telling how his brother and sister-in-law went to check on the children nearby as he grabbed his nephew and ‘backed out of there.’