
Two young children were among five victims ejected and seriously injured during a t-bone crash near Gurnee that left a total of eight hospitalized and one dead Sunday evening.
The Gurnee Fire Department and Lake County Sheriff’s Office responded around 6:40 p.m. Sunday to Route 45 and Rollins Road in unincorporated Gurnee for a vehicle crash with injuries.
Lake County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli said deputies arrived to find five people ejected from one vehicle.
A preliminary investigation shows a GMC Envoy, driven by a 34-year-old Mundelein man, was traveling westbound on Rollins Road.
The driver was attempting to make a left turn onto southbound Route 45, Covelli said.
The driver of the GMC turned left on a yellow light and was struck by an eastbound Ford pickup truck, driven by a 22-year-old Round Lake man, which was traveling through the intersection.
Five occupants from the GMC were ejected upon impact.
Those ejected occupants included a 2-year-old boy, a 4-year-old boy, a 24-year-old woman, a 31-year-old woman and a 63-year-old woman. All five are Mundelein residents.
Those five were transported to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville with serious to critical injuries. They all have been stabilized and are expected to survive, Covelli said.
The driver of the GMC was also transported to Advocate Condell Medical Center with serious injuries.
A 62-year-old front-seat passenger in the GMC was transported to Advocate Condell Medical Center but was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.
Covelli said it appears the children were sitting on the laps of two of the backseat passengers. All of those ejected were unrestrained.
The driver of the Ford was treated by paramedics at the scene.
Two passengers in the Ford, a 19-year-old Round Lake Beach man, and a 19-year-old Round Lake Heights man, were transported to Lake Forest Hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
A westbound Toyota Venza was struck by debris immediately following the crash.
None of the occupants of the Toyota were injured, Covelli said.
The crash remains under investigation by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Technical Crash Investigations Unit.