In the summer months many families take advantage of the professional baseball season by attending games at ballparks throughout the nation. Miami is one of the locations in which this occurs with people taking in Marlins games.
Recently an outing to see the Miami team ended badly for a family visiting from a neighboring state. They were hit by a Dodge minivan after they left the stadium. Three members of the family died as a result of the injuries they sustained in the car accident. They were a 50-year-old woman, 14-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl. The 67-year-old man who was behind the wheel of the minivan also perished.
Two others who were involved in the incident, a 10-year-old girl and a man who is thought to be the children’s grandfather were taken to a hospital. The girl suffered injuries characterized as critical. The man was not physically hurt but could not stop screaming after the collision. A man who was hit while riding his bicycle was fortunately not seriously hurt.
The man who was driving the minivan is thought to have lost control of the vehicle after suffering a medical emergency of some sort. At the time he was driving east on Northwest Seventh Street. He apparently struck the pedestrians head-on as they walked along a sidewalk approximately a block from the stadium.
Tragic and unexpected fatal pedestrian accidents like this can be difficult to come to terms with. This is particularly true when the lives lost are those of children. In some circumstances when people are killed through no fault of their own, wrongful death lawsuits are filed to try to recoup financial compensation for the loss of lives. Because the driver of the vehicle also died in the incident it is unclear if one such suit will be filed against his estate.
Source: Miami Herald, “Driver of the van that killed three family members after Marlins game identified,” Margaux Herrera and Melissa Sanchez, July 1, 2012