EMMETT, IDAHO – August 6, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – A Utah boy who suffered head trauma Saturday afternoon when salt blocks fell from a truck and went through the window of the car he was riding in, has succumbed to his injuries.
According to the Ada County Coroner, five-year-old Carter Samuel Atwood of Syracuse, Utah, died at the hospital Monday evening.
Idaho State Police issued a press release on Saturday, August 1, stating there was a two-vehicle injury crash had occurred around 2:30 p.m. on Highway 52, about 13 miles north of Emmett, Idaho.
Investigators said Ronald Morgenthaler, 66, of Weiser, was travelling northbound in a 2007 Chevrolet Silverado with two pallets of salt blocks on the flatbed as Jaeson Atwood, 25, of Nampa, was southbound in a 1998 Dodge Ram pickup. As Morgenthaler and Atwood were both negotiating a curve, the shrink wrap on one of the pallets became loose, causing multiple salt blocks to fall off the pickup. One of the blocks went through the passenger side of the windshield on the Dodge Ram, striking the front seat passenger, Donald Moala, 26, of Nampa, in the left shoulder, and through the backseat where it struck the young boy in the head before going out the back window.
Both Moala and the the boy were transported to Valor Health in Emmett by ground ambulance.
Carter was later transported to the St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise by air ambulance where he later died.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family.
