Wisconsin Foster Family Tragedy-Child Death

By Rally on 3-05-2013 in Aidian Ejnik, Foster Care, Gabriel Zumiga, Hope Hoth, How could you? Hall of Shame, James and Barbara Gollnow, Soledad Smith, Wisconsin

In addition to heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption, we track any deaths or injuries of minor adoptees and foster children that are newsworthy enough to be published in media stories. Our files include cases of drownings, homicides by those not involved in child welfare and car accidents like this one.

On March 2, 2013, two foster children and their foster parents were killed in a horrendous, fiery crash in Kentucky. Two other foster children were injured. They were residents of Pella, Wisconsin. They were driving back from a vacation in Disney World when semi-truck driver, Ibrahim Fetic, 47, of Troy, Michigan rear-ended their SUV. 92- year-old Marion Champnise, described as a friend, and 18-year old Sarina Gollnow, relationship not disclosed, were also killed in the SUV. An additional woman in another vehicle was injured when the SUV crashed into her sedan. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

The foster parents were James and Barbara Gollnow, both aged 62. They were from Wisconsin originally and had been living in Tennessee for many years before moving back to Wisconsin recently. They were longtime foster parents. The two foster children who died were Gabriel Zumiga, 10, and Soledad Smith, 8. The two injured foster children were Hope Hoth, 15, and Aidian Ejnik, 12. The surviving foster children have burns and fractures and were taken to hospitals in Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky.

USA Today says “Lynn Brucker of Dayton, Ohio, said she and her husband, Roger, were driving home in their camper when the crash occurred behind them. They had slowed because of an accident ahead of them.

She said her husband looked back and saw a fireball and they went to the SUV to help those trapped inside.

Another motorist helped pull a boy from the SUV who had a slice on his wrist and other injuries, Brucker said. She emptied a small fire extinguisher on the SUV and then helped with the boy, she said.

Others helped pull a teenage girl with burns on her feet and lower legs through a partially opened window, Brucker said, “then black smoke started rolling out.” A second person emptied a fire extinguisher on the SUV, and then about 30 seconds later flames began to engulf the vehicle, she said.

“It was pretty frightening,” Brucker said.

Fire trucks were still trying to put out the SUV fire when another wreck occurred involving four vehicles in the southbound lanes just across the median from the first accident, injuring three people, one of them critically, Chaffins said.

The crashes were reported 16 minutes apart near the interstate’s 83 mile marker, between Glendale and Sonora, said police dispatcher Chuck Stewart. The first crash in the northbound lanes occurred at 11:13 a.m., and the second in the southbound lanes was at 11:29 a.m.

Chaffins said despite snow flurries, weather was not a factor in either crash.

The cause of both wrecks is still being investigated, although it is likely the second crash happened when drivers slowed to look at the first one, Chaffins said.

The driver of the tractor-trailer was not injured and was cooperating with police, Chaffins said. ”

WBAY says, “Rhonda Vanhandel was a neighbor to the Gollnow’s in a community of a little less than a thousand people known as Pella.

Vanhandel has a lot of memories of the kids.

She says she used to hear them play on four-wheelers and see them leave for school in the mornings.

“I saw the kids get on the bus just down the road here everyday, and it was really sad to hear what happened to them,” she said.

She says it’s hard to grasp the fact that the couple and their children, who she saw on a regular basis were taken from the world so suddenly.

“They’d go down to one of our local establishments, take the kids down for steaks on a Saturday night, they were nice hard-working people,” she said.

While the fatal crash hits home for many in this community. People a few miles away in Marion offered prayers for the victims.

“It’s just sad. Sadness. We all feel for them and their families,” Tiah Gretzinger of Clintonville said.

To those parishioners who knew the victims, pastor Brad Dokken helps to provide healing at his church.

“As the pastor, I spent today talking with some of the high school and junior high kids about what happened and how we deal with loss and grief,” he said.”

NBC15 says ” A Michigan trucking company involved in a crash that left six people dead on Interstate 65 in central Kentucky over the weekend had a satisfactory rating from the federal agency that oversees long-haul carriers.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration based its ranking of Highway Star Inc. on a 24-month span in which the company fell below the national average of vehicle problems.

Still, the agency advised states to closely inspect the company’s vehicles after it accumulated 17 traffic violations in the two-year period.”

Sources:

6 Wisconsinites dead in Kentucky crash

[WTAQ 3/4/13]

Shawano Co. family killed in Kentucky crash

[CBS 58 3/3/13 by Becky Mortensen]

6 family members die in Ky. highway crash

[USA Today 3/3/13 by Mark Vanderhof /The Louisville Courier-Journal]

Wisconsin residents killed in Kentucky crash had long cared for foster children

[Journal Sentinel 3/3/13 by Tom Kertscher]

Foster children, elderly woman among 11 victims of Hardin Co. crashes

[Wave 3 3/2/13 by Joey Brown]