Three children under five were killed in a tractor accident in Notre-Dame-de-Stanbridge on Wednesday night.
According to Ingrid Asselin of the Sûreté du Québec, four adults and six children were riding in the bucket of the farm tractor as it travelled down the Ste-Anne range road just before 7 p.m. For reasons still unknown to the police, the bucket dropped its ten riders while driving, spilling them onto the road where they were struck by the tractor. The three children not killed were injured in severe but not life-threatening ways. Two of the adults were still considered to be in critical condition on Thursday afternoon, while the remaining two suffered more minor physical injuries.
The driver of the tractor was due to appear in court in Granby on Thursday. As of this writing Asselin was not able to confirm what charges the 38 year old man will face, but she mentioned that alcohol could be a factor. The tractor involved in the accident has been seized by the police for analysis and accident investigators and reconstructionists have been deployed to the scene to help better understand what happened.
