At least 11 people were injured after an elderly driver plowed his car into a crowd lined up for a Christmas parade in Overton, a town southeast of Tyler, on Monday night.
The driver lost control of his car and plowed through barricades and into a group of children getting ready for the annual Overton Chamber of Commerce Christmas Parade, witnesses said.
Witnesses said five children were caught underneath the car and dragged for nearly 50 feet before the car stopped.
Overton City Manager B.J. Potts said the driver was arrested, but alcohol was not detected.
"It happened very quickly," Potts said. "There's still a lot of questions."
An executive with the East Texas Area Council Boy Scouts told the Longview News-Journal that 11 people were injured -- nine Cub Scouts and two adults.
John Moore, a spokesman for Mother Frances Hospital in nearby Tyler, told The Associated Press that of the seven people brought there, five have been treated and released. They include two women, ages 28 and 33, and three boys, ages 8, 9 and 11.
One injured child was airlifted to Children's Medical Center in Dallas.
Potts said several children had been released from hospitals, but he did not have an exact number.
"I was asking this one lady for a piece of gum, and she said yeah, and I turned around and a truck started coming towards us real fast," he told KLTV. "It was real scary, frightening."
His mother, Nancy Melton, said the scene was chaotic as parents rushed to find their children.
Rusk County Justice of the Peace Jerdy Wolverton said he heard a noise and people screaming.
"There were kids on the ground, some sitting up, one or two standing. All I heard was a lot of bumping noises and screaming, and everyone was on the ground and there was a truck there," Wolverton told the Longview News-Journal.
A dispatcher with the police office said the department would not give out any information until Tuesday morning.
Police are working to determine what caused the crash.
