Child Dies, Father Charged In Accident Without Seatbelts
A Houston man had been charged with first-degree felony murder in relation to the death of his 8-year-old son in an accident that happened in the afternoon Thursday November 8th.
In a news story appearing on the Houston Chronicle website, a spokesperson for t the Houston Police Department said that the man, whose identity was not immediately released, had just picked up his sons, aged 5 and 8 from school when he drove his Chevy at a high rate of speed through a traffic signal and struck the rear end of a Dodge Ram pickup truck. Neither child had their seatbelts on at the time of the accident. The 8-year-old child had been sitting in the front seat at the time of the accident and died at the scene of the crash. The 5-year-old, who had been riding in the back seat at the time, suffered head and neck injuries in the crash.
In 2016, there were more than 128,000 children from ages 3 -14 who were injured in car crashes. The Center for Disease Control asserts that the leading cause of death to children in this age range in the United States is due to motor vehicle crashes. In 2016, 723 children aged 12 and under lost their lives in motor vehicle accidents. Safety experts agree that if adults insist that children in their care are either in proper restraints or safety seats whenever riding in a motor vehicle, the tragic loss of life among children could be greatly reduced.
While Harris County Sheriff’s investigators initially believed that the father, now identified as Fernando Carcamo, 30, showed signs of intoxication at the time of the fatal crash, a more recent update in the case has determined that Carcamo may have been impaired by medication administered to him by EMS personnel. Authorities now say that the charges against Carcamo in connection to his son’s death have reduced to manslaughter.