Teen suffers brain injury after stop sign removed at intersection, Michigan cops say
Cole Yaros was in the passenger seat while his mom was driving home after apple picking in rural Michigan, WGRT reported, when she drove through an intersection.
His mom, Trish, was planning to turn down Easton Road on Sept. 9, she told WGRT, but she never saw the sign.
That’s because someone removed the stop sign — along with the road signs — at the Easton and Reed intersection and tossed it miles away, as seen in a photo posted by the Shiawassee County Sheriff’s Office.
“I knew I would be turning on Easton Road, but there was no stop sign, so I thought I had another mile to go,” Trish Yaros told WGRT.
So, with no stop sign there, she drove right through the intersection, WNEM reported. And so did another driver who also thought they had the right of way.
The two drivers, both driving about 55 mph, could not see each other because of a corn field obstructing their views, according to WGRT.
The two cars then collided into each other, the sheriff’s office said.
“The deliberate action of the person involved (in removing the stop sign) caused a two vehicle crash that injured 3 persons, the most serious being a 14-year-old boy that had to be rushed to the hospital for life-threatening injuries,” the post says.
Cole, 14, is now suffering a brain injury and has needed surgery to remove part of his skull to make room for swelling, WNEM reported. His mom told the station he has a broken jaw, a broken cheek bone and ruptured eardrums.
“It’s really hard to see him suffer like that just for something senseless,” Tish Yaros told WNEM.
Sheriff Brian Begole told the station. “it’s very upsetting.”
“This is a heinous crime and we want to bring the person that did this to justice,” he said. “Obviously there’s quite a lot of injury to the victim and the other driver. And our hope is that somebody has some information about this and will come forward to share it with us.”
After the crash, deputies found the stop sign in a ditch and it was “secured and swabbed for DNA evidence,” according to the sheriff’s Facebook post.