Teen driver’s collision with buggy near Hinckley injures 6 in Amish family, 2 severely

An Amish couple and their four small children in a horse-drawn buggy were injured in a collision with a teenage driver on an east-central Minnesota road, officials said Monday.

The crash occurred shortly before 7 p.m. Thursday southeast of Hinckley in the 27800 block of Hinckley Road, the Pine County Sheriff’s Office said.

Two of the Miller family’s children, 2-year-old Mary and 4-year-old Bennie, “sustained life-threatening injuries” in the collision about a half-mile from their home and were taken by emergency responders to Children’s Minnesota Hospital. A hospital spokesman said Tuesday he had no information about their conditions.

Others less seriously injured in the buggy were David and Katie Miller, both 26, and 1-year-old Susie and 3-month-old Verna. The horse did not survive, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The vehicle’s driver, 17-year-old Hayden Lind of rural Pine City, called 911 to report that he “hit an object on the road,” a statement from the Sheriff’s Office read. Lind was not hurt in the crash.

The Sheriff’s Office said it is continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the collision.

In southern Minnesota on Monday, a 35-year-old woman was charged with trying to deceive law enforcement into believing her identical twin was actually the SUV driver who hit an Amish buggy last fall, killing two of the four children on the horse-drawn vehicle.

Samantha Jo Petersen of Kellogg, Minn., was charged with eight counts each of criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular operation, two gross misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and a handful of misdemeanors.

The crash involving an SUV and a buggy belonging to the Miller family occurred shortly before 8:30 a.m. Sept. 25 along southbound County Road 1. Killed were Wilma, 7, and Irma, 11. Hospitalized in Rochester for treatment were Allan, 9, and Rose, 13. The four children were riding to school at the time of the crash, with Rose holding the reins, a family friend said.