On March 11, at approximately 4:45 p.m., a two vehicle collision occurred at the intersection of westbound Arizona Farms Road and Apollo Drive. The collision involved a full sized Dodge truck and a mid-sized Toyota passenger car. The Dodge truck rear-ended the Toyota sedan. The result of the collision left three occupants of the car injured and one 2YO male child deceased. The driver of the truck received minor injuries. He is a 31-year-old resident of San Tan Valley.
Arizona Farms Road was shut down completely between Hunt Highway and Attaway Road for seven hours until one am Saturday.
Initial reports were that a third vehicle was in the area and had kicked up a large amount of dust that covered the roadway causing minimal to no visibility. The passenger car, traveling westbound, drove through the dust first followed by the truck directly behind. Sometime after entering the dust the truck rear-ended the car, the two vehicles collided, and then drove off the roadway coming to rest on the south side of the roadway. We are not at a point where we can say for sure if this was the only factor in the collision, but lack of visibility contributed to the collision. We have ruled out impairment on both drivers.
The vehicle we believe was the one kicking up dust, was located by our deputies in a neighborhood near the collision. The persons at that resident were interviewed, but we are not making any connections or conclusions until the investigation is completed.