A North Texas family sustained serious injuries after police say they were hit by a suspected drunk driver.
Around 8:20 p.m. Tuesday, Arlington police responded to a crash by the westbound lanes of I-20 near the Highway 360 interchange. A pick-up truck carrying a family of four including two children had been hit by another car, causing the truck to hit a guardrail and roll over it.
One of those two children is a 2-year-old girl named Mi’lania, according to her great-grandmother Debbie Vailes.
“The doctors aren’t hopeful, but we are,” Vailes said. “She’s been intubated ever since, basically. Hasn’t breathed on her own.”
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Vailes was with Mi’lania’s older sister Aubrey, 4, on Thursday who was also in the truck at the time. Aubrey’s injuries are minor. According to Vailes, the girls’ mother Brooklyn has several broken ribs and a partially collapsed lung.
Brooklyn has left the hospital against medical advice to be with her 2-year-old, while her husband Joshua remains in the hospital. He underwent surgery on Wednesday, Vailes said.
“He has a completely collapsed lung. It crushed one of his femurs. I forgot which one. They had to reconstruct that yesterday, and it crushed one of his hands,” she said.
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Police have identified the driver responsible for the crash as Tyler Hampton, 25, of Grand Prairie. Arlington police spokesperson Tim Ciesco said witnesses told police Hampton was driving erratically on the road and swerving into lanes.
“Based on some things he [Hampton] told them [police] about what he had been doing and where he had been prior to the crash happening, they decided to do a series of roadside sobriety tests on him. Then based on the results of those tests, they arrested him on three counts of intoxication assault causing serious bodily injury,” Ciesco said. “That’s going to be one count for each of the three people in the car that was seriously injured.”
Ciesco added, the department has a DWI unit patrolling roadways to get drunk drivers off the road. The unit will be out in full force this holiday season, he said.
Vailes said her family continues to rally for Mi’lania’s healing, along with Joshua and Brooklyn.
“She’s [Mi’lania] such a beautiful baby. So beautiful. so full of life and love and such a sweet baby,” she said.
This week, the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office issued a reminder that the county has a “No Refusal” policy year-round. This means drivers pulled over for suspected impaired driving who refuse to take a routine breath test will be subject to a court-ordered blood test.
According to county data, there have been 5,122 DWI cases in Tarrant County this year through December 15.
