SAINT CLAIR TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Al Schumm was sitting in his home Monday evening near the intersection of Eaton and West Taylor School roads when he heard a commotion outside.
"I actually thought, maybe my wife dropped something," he said. "So I got up, went out to check."
What he found was the aftermath of a deadly crash that killed one young girl, 9-year-old Kylee Meiners, and hospitalized another child. Two adults also were hurt in the crash.
"It looked like someone had just taken a can opener and opened the side of that van up from the front passenger back," he said. "It was open; you could just look in here and see the seats, car seats, all the personal belongings."
Butler County sheriff's deputies said the driver of that van — from which both children were ejected in the crash — did not stop at the two-way stop sign before crossing Eaton. The failure to stop, deputies said, caused the van to crash into a pickup truck.
David Waddell also lives nearby on Taylor School Road. He said Monday's crash saddened him, but it didn't surprise him.
"People are going through that intersection all the time, going from Seven Mile (Road) to Eaton Road, and they just don't stop, and they're usually at a pretty high speed," he said.
An official with the Butler County engineer's office told WCPO that they've received feedback about the intersection before, but the intersection's history of crashes has not been frequent enough to warrant paying for upgrades to its traffic safety infrastructure.
There were two crashes there in 2016 and two in 2017, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Still, both Schumm and Waddell said they'd like to see something done.
"Either a signal light or a nighttime, solar-power stop sign, you know, where the lights (are) around the stop sign," Waddell said.
