2 children in critical condition after rollover crash in Chandler
Oct 27, 2013, 3:06 PM | Updated: 5:13 pm
CHANDLER — Two boys remained in critical condition Sunday following a rollover crash in Chandler earlier in the weekend.
According to police, the driver of a Ford F250 was traveling west Saturday on Ray Road at a high rate of speed when he lost control of the vehicle. Witnesses said the truck went over a sidewalk and into a retention pond before coming back up onto Arrowhead Drive and striking a Nissan Pathfinder with three young children inside.
“We believe it was going fast enough that it actually launched the vehicle in the air, and while it was airborne, it struck the top of that vehicle that was traveling through,” said Sgt. Joe Favazzo of the Chandler Police Department.
The truck collided with the rear passenger window of the Pathfinder, causing the SUV to roll over two times in the roadway and land on all four wheels.
“When the truck hit that vehicle, it spun it to the right, which made that vehicle drive down off of Arrowhead and into a retention base and into a landscaped area,” Favazzo said.
Two 3-year-old boys in the Pathfinder suffered serious injuries and remain in critical condition. The 61-year-old driver and a 1-year-old girl suffered minor injuries.
The driver of the truck, Nathan Painter, 43, fled the scene. Witnesses followed him through a neighborhood, where the vehicle eventually came to a stop. Painter’s girlfriend was in the front passenger seat of the truck and also sustained injuries during the collision.
Painter was booked on multiple counts of aggravated assault, endangerment and hit and run.
