Make New York Post a Preferred Source The mom who plowed into a Kansas youth soccer game, killing a child and another parent, was trying to nap in her husband’s car after an hours-long drive — and was blinded by a sunshade covering her windscreen, authorities revealed while announcing she will not be charged.
The unidentified 34-year-old mom had driven more than 200 miles from her home in Garden City, Kan. to the Stryker Sports Complex in Wichita before the Oct. 17 tragedy that killed Cole Adrian, 6, and Nicholas Schafer, 35.
She drove her husband’s Chevrolet because of issues with her own car’s tires, arriving after the long drive at around 10:40 a.m., according to a timeline given by authorities.
She left to grab lunch around 1:20 p.m. — then parked close to the field for a nap when she returned around an hour later while awaiting one of her kids’ games later in the day.
“She parks. She tells her kids she’s tired, which would be consistent with having gotten up that morning and driven that far,” Marc Bennett, the Sedgwick County District Attorney, said.
“[She] takes her seat all the way back and goes to sleep.”
While one of her children warmed up for their game, the mom’s 14-year-old daughter thoughtfully put a sunscreen across the windshield to help her mom sleep in peace.
The teen told investigators that “she doesn’t like people looking into the truck at her mom sleeping,” Bennett said.
The truck was stationary for 46 minutes — before it suddenly darted onto the field, hitting and killing Adrian and Schafer and injuring 10 others.
Investigators believe the mom accidentally hit the accelerator on the car she doesn’t usually drive — and was then unable to see where she was going because of the shade covering her windshield.
“She remembered reaching for the sunscreen but failed to remove it, before finally forcing the column shift into park, which brought the truck to an abrupt halt,” the DA said.
The mom then emerged “frantic [and] hysterical,” Bennett said, saying she was crying, “‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. What have I done?’”
Witnesses told authorities that the mom was “sleepy” and “looked like she’d just woken up,” the DA continued.
Tests showed “zero evidence that this was in any way impacted by intoxication,” the DA said, stressing there was also nothing to suggest it was anything but a freak accident.
“As bad as this was, it was not a crime. I cannot charge this driver with a crime. The notion that I could establish and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she did this intentionally, it’s simply not there.”
