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Fleming wreck ejected toddler; soldier stopped to help
Fleming wreck 0723web
Emergency workers attend to one of the injured in Thursday's wreck. - photo by Photo by Lewis Levine

More details were released Friday on the Thursday-afternoon wreck that injured six people, including two toddlers.

The two-vehicle accident took place on Leroy Coffer Highway, Georgia State Patrol Trooper Harry Middleton said

Middleton said a child was ejected and another injured.

Lauren Moore, 24, was driving a 2005 Nissan Titan pickup truck with three passengers — a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old, and Dustin Sloan, 27. At this point, it is not clear which child was seriously injured; however, Middleton said it is believed the child who was in a child-safety seat sustained a fractured skull after the vehicle was struck on the side in which the child was sitting.

The other child was ejected and suffered scratches and bruises and needed stitches. Sloan and Moore were still at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah on Friday morning.

The 2003 Chevrolet Suburban was driven by Thomas Hill, who owns Thomas Hill Jewelry store in Hinesville. His wife, Eva Hill, was his passenger. They suffered cuts and bruises and were transported to Memorial.

The Hills were traveling eastbound on Leroy Coffer Highway when they struck the pickup, which had just left a service station at the intersection with Pate Rogers Road. Middleton said Moore ran the stop sign and crossed the highway in the direction of Freedman Grove Road — which is on the other side of Leroy Coffer — when the vehicles collided. The vehicle driven by Hill came to rest at the Leroy Coffer and Freedman Grove, while Moore’s vehicle traveled into the wood line. When the vehicle stopped, the child was ejected.

Middleton said a Fort Stewart soldier — identified as Antigone Morgan, 19 — witnessed the accident and sprung into action. In a phone interview Friday, Morgan, a combat medic with Division Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, said that after the vehicles collided, sheran to the pickup truck to help.

When she got to the truck, she could hear a baby crying and saw the child’s the mother climb out of the truck to comfort him. When Morgan made contact with the mother, the woman told Morgan she couldn't move. Morgan took the child, who was bloody, from the mother and began helping him.

"He kept crying, ‘Ow,’ and, ‘I want my mommy,’" as she inspected his injuries, Morgan said.

The child told Morgan, “I'm bleeding. Can you kiss my boo-boos?” Morgan said she kissed the child's hand, which comforted him till emergency-medical personnel arrived.

Morgan said the other child in his car seat was coughing up blood as she went to help him.

Moore is charged with failure to obey a stop sign and failure to use a child restraint.

 

 

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