Police in Chatham-Kent say a seven-year-old girl is dead and her two siblings, age four and 11, are in a London hospital following a single-vehicle crash Monday night.
According to police, a man was driving with his girlfriend’s three kids in the vehicle when it left the roadway and came to rest upside down in a water-filled ditch on Jacob Road near Given Line at roughly 9 p.m. Monday.
The man was able to get two of the three children out of the vehicle while volunteer firefighters were able to remove the third child, police say.
The three children were taken to the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance where the middle child, 7, was pronounced dead.
The deceased’s surviving brother and sister were both transferred to hospital in London — the four-year-old girl via Ornge air ambulance and the 11-year-old boy via land ambulance. Chatham-Kent police told Global News early Tuesday afternoon that the two children are in stable condition.
Chatham-Kent police say officers on scene “believed the man was driving while under the influence of alcohol.” He was arrested and taken to headquarters for breath tests, police add.
A Chatham man, 34, is facing charges of impaired driving causing death, criminal negligence causing death, impaired driving causing bodily harm, criminal negligence causing bodily harm and two counts of driving while under suspension.
Police say they are not releasing his name in order to protect the children’s identities, adding that members of the Chatham-Kent Police Service offer “their deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased little girl.”