A tight-knit neighborhood in the Town of Newburgh has been left shaken after three children were struck by an SUV while playing outside, News 12 reported. For many people who live on the quiet street, what happened was hard to believe, with one resident describing it simply as one of those freak things.
According to Town of Newburgh police, the crash happened on Stero Drive at around 7 on Thursday night. Neighbors said a young boy watched three of his friends get hit, and was later heard repeating that they were his friends, a detail that captured how close to home the incident landed for those nearby.
The injuries were serious. Police said two of the three children are in critical but stable condition, and that all three were taken to area hospitals after the crash. The toll on such a small street left residents struggling to process what had unfolded in a place they considered safe.
Neighbors offered an account of how the children came to be in the SUV's path. They said the kids had been playing and ran out from behind a line of trees and shrubs, greenery that was covering the area and made the children hard to see, when the vehicle struck them.
Police identified the driver only as a 52-year-old man, and neighbors said he lives nearby. The vehicle involved was described as a blue Jeep, which state police spent hours examining as they worked to understand exactly what had taken place on the residential street.
Investigators put significant time into the scene. State police spent hours on Thursday reconstructing the crash and looking over the Jeep, and remained in the area until Friday afternoon. Stero Drive is a one-way street that leads to Route 300, and neighbors complained that cars often come through quickly.
For now, key questions remain open. Police have not said what caused the crash or whether speed played a role, and they have not released the ages of the children or identified the driver. As one neighbor put it, it was an accident too close to home, a reminder that such things can happen on any street in an instant.