A drunken driver plowed into a building where a children’s birthday party was being held in Michigan on Saturday afternoon, killing two young siblings and injuring at least 15 other people, the police said.
An 8-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother were killed when the driver, a 66-year-old woman, drove through a wall of the Swan Boat Club in Monroe County, where the celebration was being held, at about 3 p.m., Troy Goodnough, the Monroe County sheriff, said at a news conference on Saturday evening. The club is in Berlin Township, southwest of Detroit and near the town of Newport.
Fifteen people were injured, including three children and six adults who sustained life-threatening injuries and were driven or airlifted to local hospitals, Sheriff Goodnough said. He gave no further details about the driver, but said that the police were executing a search warrant at a nearby tavern where she may have been before the crash.
The driver has been taken into police custody and is currently at the Monroe County jail, Sheriff Goodnough said. She has been charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated causing death, and is likely to face additional criminal charges, he said. In Michigan, the penalty for such an offense could be as much as $10,000 in fines and 15 years in prison.
It was unclear how many people were inside the club at the time of the accident, the authorities said.
Emergency medical workers described a scene that was “extremely chaotic, with high levels of emotions of those directly involved and those who witnessed this horrific incident,” Sheriff Goodnough said.
Swan Boat Club said in a Facebook post that there had been a “terrible accident at Swan today with many injuries, and much damage to the pavilion.”
