Two people, including a young child, died and two were injured as a result a crash Sunday morning on Wilmington Dayton Road, according to Sugarcreek Twp. Police Chief Michael A. Brown.
Officers, several medics and CareFlight responded around 11:30 a.m. to a single-vehicle crash on Wilmington Dayton Road near Willow Creek Circle.
The passenger, Menley C. Downs, 23, of Waynesville and a child younger than 7 were pronounced dead at the scene.
The driver, Adam C. Bishop, 30, from Lebanon, was taken to Kettering Medical Center and another child, also younger than 7, was taken to a local hospital. Bishop was last listed in stable, but critical condition.
All four passengers were wearing seat belts.
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A Toyota Corolla was traveling northbound on Wilmington Dayton Road when it went left of center about 50 yards before Willow Creek Circle, said Brown.
The car continued going left off the roadway into a ravine and came to a stop where a drain, going underneath the road to hold up the area, and concrete stone wall meet.
The speed of the car is unknown at this time, but it hit the wall pretty hard going at a fast speed.
Chief Brown says there’s no real indication on the road, in terms of skid marks and things of that nature, that they attempted to stop.
The cause of the accident or why the driver drove off the road is under investigation by the Xenia Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
The Sugarcreek Twp. Police Department and Fire Department assisted at the scene.
“Pay attention. The weather’s perfect today and obviously the roads are very dry so with this particular case, we don’t know why he went off the road, certainly those are the things we’ll be looking into,” said Chief Brown. “In terms of individuals that drive this road, you have to pay attention when you’re out in the country. The roads tend to dip up and down, left and right, so you have to pay attention.”
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Daniel Nitz of Sugercreek Twp. said his family was inside having breakfast when the accident happened.
“We we’re all inside having breakfast and hear a really loud helicopter coming over top and started landing in our neighbor’s yard so we came out to see what was going on and it looked like a pretty bad accident,” he said.
Nitz says the area has become more dangerous over time.
“When we moved here 14 years ago, there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic, but as developments started coming back up, the traffic has really picked up and it’s become a little bit more of a dangerous area,” he said. “It’s an unmarked rural road, which means the speed limit’s 55 but a lot of people don’t know that so you get diversity in the speeds that people are driving.”
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Julie Barton, who lives near Sugarcreek Twp. in Waynesville, also said the area is dangerous.
“I was surprised it [the accident] was so severe, I’m not super surprised to see an accident just because people drive like crazy out here,” she said.
Barton says this accident worries her about her two sons who are new drivers.
“I have two boys with temporary licenses and one of the things that scared me about the prospect about them getting their license is driving out on the back roads,” she said.
