The grieving father of a college golfer who died in a Texas crash on Tuesday slammed the dad of a 13-year-old for allowing the teenager to drive the pickup truck that crashed into a van killing nine people.
“That is the very picture of lunacy — to allow a 13-year-old behind the wheel of a pickup traveling down the road at 70 miles per hour at night. That has got to be the zenith of lunacy,” Gary Raines, father of Karisa Raines, who was killed in the collision, told The New York Post on Friday.
Karisa was an avid golfer. Her father told The Post that she was about to graduate from the University of the Southwest with a bachelor’s degree. Her family is planning her memorial service.
Karisa was one of the people who died in the crash. The men’s and women’s golf teams from the University of the Southwest were in her van.
A 13-year-old child was behind the wheel of a pickup truck involved in a head-on collision in Texas Tuesday evening that killed nine people, including six University of the Southwest golfers and their coach, the National Transportation Safety Board sayshttps://t.co/1LSPLlKOGz
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) March 17, 2022
The National Transportation Safety Board said that a boy behind the wheel of a pickup lost control after a tire blew out. The board is looking into the incident. The father and son were in the vehicle. They died in the collision.
“(Henrich Siemens) was guilty of not only stupidity and lunacy, but he was also guilty of child abuse, in my opinion. Do I blame the kid for the wreck — I do not. Do I blame the father for the wreck, I do not. I blame the father for not having better sense,” said Gary Raines.
The mother of Laci Stone, who also lost her life during the incident, told the outlet that she isn’t sure what to think of the fact that a young boy was driving the truck that killed her daughter.
On Wednesday, the Texas Department of Public Safety identified the victims who succumbed to their injuries as Tyler James, 26; Mauricio Sanchez, 19; Travis Garcia, 19; Jackson Zinn, 22; Karisa Raines, 21; Laci Stone, 18; and Tiago Sousa, 18.
Two of the people in the van were in critical condition. Landsberg was unable to give an update on their condition.
