Man killed, 4 children injured in single-vehicle crash on U.S. 127 in Lansing

LANSING – A man was killed and four children were injured Tuesday afternoon when the vehicle they were riding in crashed into a bridge abutment on U.S. 127 and caught fire.

The driver, a 33-year-old Lansing man, was dead at the scene of the 3:25 p.m. incident in the northbound lanes at Dunckel Road, Lansing police said.

The four children in the vehicle were taken to a hospital with serious injuries, Lansing police Sgt. Marcus Johnson said. They included a 4-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl, a 3-year-old boy and a 7-month-old boy, he said.

In a news release Wednesday afternoon, police said the 7-month-old and 4-year-old boys suffered critical injuries. The 3-year-old boy was seriously injured, while the 4-year-old girl had minor injuries, they said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the children's conditions had been updated to stable.

The man's name was being withheld.

Police believe the vehicle was heading north when it crossed into the median and struck an abutment at the Dunckel Road bridge. Police did not say what might have caused the vehicle to leave the roadway.

The Ingham Regional Crash Investigation Team was called in to reconstruct the crash.

Shortly after the crash, the Michigan Department of Transportation announced a closure of the northbound lanes at Interstate 96 and the southbound lanes at Dunckel, although police later were maintaining one lane of traffic in each direction.

A sport-utility vehicle with crash and fire damage was in the median.

Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call Lansing police at 483-4600.

Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Man killed, 4 children injured in crash on U.S. 127 in Lansing