Woman Dies, Child Injured in Medical Village Crash

 Posted on September 18, 2012 in Personal Injury

In mid-September a motorist crashed "into a tree killing a woman and injuring himself and a four-year-old boy" in Medical Village on the Near West Side, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. According to Police News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli, the driver "has not been charged with anything," and was in very critical condition at the hospital. The passenger in the car, a 25-year-old woman named Angeline De Leon, was pronounced dead at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, and the 4-year-old boy was taken in stable condition to the University of Chicago Corner Children's Hospital. No further information was available for the reason of the crash. The fact that the child was taken to the hospital in stable condition is good news for the kid's parents. According to NPR News, "nearly a million children worldwide die every year as a result of unintentional injuries, and the biggest killer is traffic accidents." The Director of the Department of Injuries and Violence Prevention at the World Health Organization told NPR that once a child reaches age 9, injuries become the leading cause of death." On a global scale, he said, the number of children worldwide who die of injuries such as car accidents is like "wiping out the entire child and adolescent population of Chicago every year." Yet according to the Chicagoist, "the number of children in Illinois dying as a result of firearms has surpassed the number of those killed in car crashes." According to data from the Illinois Child Death Review Times, 83 kids died as a result of a car accident in 2002, while 68 died as the result of a firearm. In 2010, 84 kids died from a firearm, and only 75 died in car crashes. If you or someone you know has been involved in a car accident that resulted in the death of a child, don't go through it alone. Contact an experienced Cook County personal injury attorney today.