SEEKONK, Mass. (WJAR) — A driver lost control of a truck in the parking lot of Mildred H. Aitken Elementary School on Monday afternoon, slamming into several parked vehicles just one minute before dismissal, according to parents who witnessed the crash.
No children were hurt, but several parents suffered injuries, witnesses said.
Larry McKinnon, a grandfather who was waiting to pick up his two grandchildren, said the truck came speeding backward through the lot.
NBC 10’s Leanna Faulk reports.{ }
“I was stunned,” McKinnon said. “All of a sudden this flash and I saw it. I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Nobody should be driving this fast.”
Photos shared with NBC 10 show extensive damage to at least eight vehicles, along with debris scattered across the back parking lot. McKinnon said the SUV involved was “a tank,” describing it as one of Cadillac’s largest models.
“The destruction was brutal,” he said. “If parents were in the cars, they got hurt.”
One parent told NBC 10 she believed the driver was going about 75 mph, saying she “saw her life flash before her eyes” and felt she was seconds away from being hit.
She said she was “so grateful no children were hurt.”
Another parent told NBC 10 it appeared to be a “truly an accident.”
The parent said the driver, a woman in her 60s, was “shooken up and very apologetic,” and that the truck may have slipped out of neutral before jolting backward about 8 to 10 feet. The parent also said the driver was not injured and another person in a nearby van was shaken but able to walk around.
McKinnon said the timing is what frightened him most.
“It was minutes away” from students coming outside, he said. “I’m still in a state of shock at what I witnessed.”
As of Monday night, Seekonk Police and Seekonk Public Schools had not released information about the crash.
NBC 10 has reached out to both for comment and is awaiting a response.
