Rear-End Crash Flips Amish Buggy — Fire Chief Says Horse Breaking Loose Likely Saved Baby

An Amish family of seven suffered injuries, some of them serious, when a driver rear-ended their buggy Sunday night in Coal County, Oklahoma.

The crash was dramatic – and the aftermath was as well. A trapped baby fortunately survived – but it very well could have ended up differently, according to the fire chief. Here’s more via the Ada News:

Williams said it appeared a motorist was driving a vehicle north on SH 48 when she crashed into the back of the buggy, which was carrying Dewayne Shrock, his wife and their five children, with the oldest child being 8 years old.

“(The impact) flipped the horse, the buggy, everything upside down in the ditch,” Williams said Monday morning.

Williams said everyone except one child was thrown from the buggy during the crash.

It sounds as if, had the horse not broken loose, the infant would have been dragged:

“One baby was still tangled up in the wreckage when the horse finally got to its feet and broke loose,” Williams said. “Thank God it broke loose from the carriage, or the little girl probably wouldn’t have survived.”

That’s what I mean by a dramatic aftermath. Thank God that the horse happened to free itself. No word on the horse’s condition, though it was clearly able to move on its own power.

Some of the family members suffered serious injuries, with four medical helicopters and two ambulances used to transport them to hospital in Oklahoma City.

We don’t hear too often of Amish buggy wrecks in Oklahoma, in part because the state has a low Amish population (well under 1,000 people in the last rankings). The Clarita settlement, where this wreck happened, was founded nearly 50 years ago, but has never grown very large, having only around 100 Amish residents.

The family was nearly home when the crash happened – just 150 feet from their own driveway. The car driver has been described as a juvenile, and was reportedly adjusting the thermostat when the crash happened.

One further note: the Oklahoma Highway Patrol’s report (as reported by KTEN) puts six people in the buggy rather than seven, while the Ada News, which named the family, counts seven. It’s possible the OHP report is overlooking the infant as the only one who wasn’t thrown.

Keep this family in your prayers.