Child Dies, Another Hurt When SUV Slides Into Lake

A 5-year-old Coeur d’Alene boy is dead and his year-old brother is in critical condition after their car slid off a road and plunged into an Idaho lake.

The Kootenai County Sheriff’s office says the boys’ mother, 25-year-old Sarah Deshazer, was trying to turn their SUV around Sunday afternoon when a wheel went off the road and sent the vehicle went down an embankment into Lake Fernan, just east of Coeur d’Alene.

Spokesman Maj. Ben Wolfinger says in a release that she and her husband, 28-year-old Michael Deshazer, escaped before the SUV sank but could not reach the children before it plunged into 12 feet of murky water.

Firefighters reached the brothers shortly after the 1:45 p.m. accident and began CPR.

Wolfinger says they were rushed to a hospital where the 5-year-old was pronounced dead. The younger child is in critical condition.