Media

Underage Driver Arrested After Interstate Vehicle Crash

Release Date: July 14, 2004

Sheriff’s Deputies say a 14 year- old-girl and two of her girl friends, who had run away last night from small towns in Oklahoma, were involved in an interstate crash this morning that sent five people to area hospitals.

It all began just after eight o’clock this morning on the north leg of Interstate 240 near the Hollywood Exit. A Sheriff’s Deputy assigned to the Interstate Drug Interdiction Task Force clocked the runaways’ white Mercury traveling east doing 65 mph in the 55 mph zone.

The deputy turned on his blue lights to pull the car over. The girls’ vehicle slowed down and the driver indicated she was going to pull over at the Hollywood exit. She then swerved left and sped past the exit driving at a high rate of speed.

The deputy contacted the Sheriff’s Office Dispatcher and indicated the girls’ car was refusing to stop. Just seconds later, the girl’s car exited off the interstate at Jackson Avenue.

Traffic Deputies say the teenager was going too fast to make the right turn onto Jackson. She veered across Jackson and was hit by a Federal Express delivery truck that was going south.

The delivery truck then hit another vehicle, a green Ford Explorer, that was going north on Jackson. Jerry Ferrell, 34, the FedEx truck driver, was not hurt.

However, the woman driving the Ford Explorer, 47-year-old Delouis (this is the correct spelling) Gray, and her four-year-old grand-son, were injured and taken to the hospital in non-critical condition. Ms. Gray was charged for failing to have her grand-son in a child booster seat.

Deputies have placed several charges against the teenager that caused the crash, who is from Park Hill, Oklahoma, with:

• Evading Law Enforcement Authorities (a felony)
• Reckless Endangerment (2 counts)
• Reckless Driving
• Speeding
• No Driver’s License
• Minor in Possession of Beer

Deputies found several cans of beer in the car. However, they don’t know if the teenager was drinking at the time of the crash. Blood samples have been taken to determine that.

The driver and another female passenger in the car are from Park Hill, Oklahoma. The other young girl is from Cooksin, Oklahoma.

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