Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
School hit by another vehicle
Second time in two months accident has occurred at location
SILOAM SPRINGS — Another vehicle crashed into Siloam Springs Intermediate School on Sunday evening.
It marks the second time in less than two months the east wall of the school gym has been hit by a vehicle.
A 1999 Honda Accord driven by Tyler Matthews, 32, was traveling at a high rate of speed west bound on Cheri Whitlock Avenue when it left the road, crossed the lawn and struck the side of the building, according to Capt. Derek Spicer of the Police Department.
Natalia Wiggins, 25, and Desa Watkins, 18, were passengers in the vehicle, Spicer said. Impairment may have played a role in the accident but has not been confirmed, he said.
Two patients were taken by ambulance and one was transported by air ambulance, according to Fire Chief Jeremey Criner. Fire department personnel had to extract the driver from the car, but he was not the person transported by air ambulance, said Battalion Chief Adam Rusk.
A pickup truck driven by Ezequiel Gomez, 24, hit the school during the early hours of Jan. 5, Spicer said. It was also traveling westbound on Cheri Whitlock when it lost control, jumped the curb on the south side of the road, then came back across the north side of the road and went through the ditch before hitting the wall of the building.
The driver left the vehicle and police believe the suspect was picked up by another vehicle, Spicer said in January.
On Sunday, the car appeared to hit the building about 40 feet north of where the first vehicle hit the gym in January, according to Superintendent Jody Wiggins, who is no relation to passenger Natalia Wiggins. This time the car didn’t hit a ditch or fire hydrant to slow them down and appeared to do a lot more damage, he said.
Engineers inspected the building on Monday and again on Tuesday morning after some block had been removed to expose a beam and found the building to be structurally sound, according to Assistant Superintendent Shane Patrick.
Workers were in the process of building a construction wall along the east side of the school gym on Tuesday, and Patrick said he was hopeful that students could use the gym again by Thursday. The facility is used for physical education and socially-distanced band classes, he said.
“We have been very careful to make sure the building is safe for students and staff,” Patrick said. “We want to get them back in there as soon as possible, but safety is the first priority.”
Contractors had just finished putting a coat of paint on the inside wall repairs from the previous accident on Saturday, Wiggins said. There was still some work to be completed on the outside, but the inside work was finished.
The second accident was far enough away from the first that it didn’t damage any of the repairs that were already made, Patrick said.
Wiggins guessed that the school had been in place for the past 20 years and the road has been there for a number of years as well, he said.
“We’ve never had an issue before the past two months,” he said.
The district plans to put some kind of a barrier between the school and road to protect the school from being hit again, but Wiggins said he doesn’t know what that will look like yet.