Families of children who were killed in Chatham Daycare Crash Release statements – NBC Chicago

Among the children who were killed when a vehicle fell through a daycare center in Illinois on Monday, 8-year-old Ainsley Grace Johnson, also known as “squirt”, and 7-year-old Alma Buhnerkempe.

The young girls from Chatham, Illinois, belonged to three young children and a teenager who lost their lives when a vehicle driven by a 44-year-old woman hit the daycare center and the care center after school and went out the other side.

“She was bigger than life and will leave an emptiness in our broken hearts forever,” Ainsley's father Todd Johnson told NBC on Tuesday.

Similarly, Alma's family said that she was a “sunshine wherever she went”.

“She was cute, sociable, silly and funny. She loved her friends and family violently,” her mother Billie Bühnerkeme told NBC. “She loved playing football, doing basketball and gymnastics. She loved traveling and went in her short life in 17 states. Her brother wants to have autism, and she loved and supported him almost a big sister.”

Also under the killed Rylee Britton, 18, from Springfield, and Kathryn Corley (7) from Chatham.

The founder of Ynot Outdoors, Jamie Loftus, said in a explanation that the “unpleasant tragedy” began on Monday shortly before 3:30 p.m., as “a large SUV vehicle, on walnut, by Chatham, the left Walnut Street, in a significant distance from Ynot, western direction.”

“It traveled through a 78 hectare farm field and bend into a way that security cameras watched and showed that it went to our building at high speed,” wrote Loftus. “Without an obvious attempt to change his direction, the vehicle crossed North Breckenridge and the sidewalk and drove to our parking lot and the east wall of our building. The vehicle left the building on the west side and crossed the CHATHAM water tower and then faced a electricity and ball field fence.”

According to the ISP, the car hit numerous people before it went out the other side of the building.

The driver, who was the only person in the vehicle at the time, was not injured in the incident, but was brought to a regional hospital for evaluation. Toxicological reports were pending, officials said.

According to the police, the driver was not in custody from Tuesday morning and the cause of the crash was examined.

Six other children were brought to a nearby hospital with injuries, said ISP. At least one remained in a critical condition.

“I cannot collect the words to express a lot of everything that makes sense in printed form. However, I know that our families who have suffered loss and injury today are very, very badly hurt,” wrote Loftus. “They are friends and their children are like our children. The village of Chatham and Ball Chatham schools will need their population and the outside world to love them for praying for them, think of them and give them space and respect at the same time.”