4-year-old boy struck and killed after wandering onto Indiana freeway

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A four-year-old boy who wandered onto a freeway early on Monday morning in Indiana was struck and killed by a motorist.

Braxton Freeze of Princeton, Indiana was staying with his mother and her boyfriend at a business near State Highway 66 when Freeze woke up and walked out onto the road, according to the Warrick County Sheriff’s Office. He was hit by a motorist who was reportedly going between 45 and 50 miles per hour.

As per a statement from the sheriff’s office, the motorist called 911 and began performing CPR on the child, but it was too late. Freeze was pronounced dead at the scene.

“The family of that child, the driver, to have to deal with that, and also all of the first responders on scene and that took the call this morning; it affects it impacts everyone that touches that incident,” Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Paul Krause told television station WFIE in Evansville, Indiana.

The investigation into Freeze’s death is still ongoing, though no charges have been filed to this point. Mr Krause said there was nothing the motorist could have done to prevent the accident and that the sheriff’s office does not believe that drugs or alcohol were involved in the crash.

The sheriff’s office said in its statement that it is coordinating its investigation with the Indiana State Police, the Warrick County Coroner’s Office, and the Indiana Department of Child Services. The office also noted that it recieved assistance from the Newburgh Police Department in its initial work.

Pedestrian fatalities are not uncommon in the US. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that there were 93 pedestrian fatalities in Indiana alone in 2020, while the US as a whole experiences thousands of pedestrian fatalities each year. According to the CDC, an American died about every 75 minutes in 2020 in a traffic fatality.