8-Year-Old Girl Killed While Driving Car

'My heart is dying; there are no words'
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 24, 2015 3:40 PM CST
8-Year-Old Girl Killed While Driving Car
Stock image   (Shutterstock)

A driver died Sunday in Kansas after losing control of her 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt, rolling down an embankment, and landing upside down in a creek, the Topeka Capital-Journal reports. The driver? An 8-year-old girl. "Grandpa said he gave her permission to drive and she crashed," a Kansas Highway Patrol spokesperson tells the St. Joseph News-Press. "It is just really an unfortunate accident." According to the Capital-Journal, Cadence Orcutt was driving the car with her grandfather in the passenger seat when she overcorrected to the left and went off the road. She wasn't wearing a seatbelt at the time. The News-Press notes it's unclear why Cadence lost control of the car.

Emergency responders found Cadence dead at the scene, the News-Press reports. Her grandfather was injured and taken to a local hospital for treatment. An investigation into the crash is ongoing, and charges are possible against Cadence's grandfather. Following the crash, the girl's mother took to Facebook to defend her parenting, according to the Capital-Journal. She says she would never have let her daughter drive if she had been there. "My heart is dying," she writes on Facebook. "There are no words. There’s nothing. She will never come home again." (More child death stories.)

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