5-year-old, mother dead after car crashes in ditch in Arkansas
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A five-year-old and the child’s mother are dead after their car rolled into a water-filled ditch in Trumann, Arkansas on Tuesday night.
Around 10:30 p.m., Poinsett County deputies say they responded to Maple Grove and Oscar Road regarding one vehicle that had rolled over into a ditch. Trumann Fire Department and Police Department also responded.
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A five-year-old child who was ejected from the car was found critically injured on the bank of the ditch. Deputies say “life-saving measures” were performed on the child.
The child later died at the hospital due to the injuries sustained during the car crash.
The vehicle was removed from the ditch, but no one was located inside.
Trumann Fire Department says the body of the 27-year-old mother, Haley Smith, was recovered in the water just before 9 a.m. on Wednesday. She was previously reported missing.
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Family members did not want to talk, but a relative told WREG that Smith and the child were on their way home when the wreck happened. She thinks perhaps the rain and fog caused Smith to go off the road and into what locals call Polecat Creek.
Nan Barnes and her children live across the road on from what locals call Polecat Creek. She was a neighbor and friend of the victims.
“We opened up the front door and heard all the screaming and that’s when we all took off outside to see what was going on, and seen her car was in the ditch,” Barnes said.
Barnes says the screaming came from some of Haley Smith’s friends.
“They weren’t with her. I guess they had followed her, I don’t know,” Barnes said.
It wasn’t long before Maple Grove Lane was lined with first responders as far as the eye could see.
Joining them was 16-year-old Noah Barnes, who dived into the creek to help search the wrecked car for survivors.
“I tried my best to help,” he said. “After my brother and a couple of other cops flipped the car over, they tried to look in the car. The airbags were inflated and everything else, but they didn’t see nobody in the car.”
Law enforcement agencies are investigating.
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