Five-year-old child in critical condition after alleged drunk driver strikes utility pole in Brookline
A 37-year-old Roxbury man was charged with drunken driving after a single-car crash in Brookline Friday night left a 5-year-old child riding in the car in critical condition, police said.
Brookline police responded to South and Newton streets around 10:13 p.m. Friday and discovered a 25-year-old passenger, William Gomez, holding the child and sitting outside a car which had struck a utility pole, Lt. Philip Harrington said.
Witnesses told police the driver of the car had walked away from the scene. The driver, Luis Parraga, was later found near the intersection of Grove Street and West Roxbury Parkway, according to police.
Parraga is also being charged with leaving the scene of an accident and driving without a license.
Police requested an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer be placed on Parraga, a native of Mexico. Police gave no other details.
Gomez, of Hyde Park, was arrested and charged with allowing an improper person to drive a vehicle and for allowing through wanton or reckless conduct substantial bodily injury to a child, according to police.
Police said Gomez is the boyfriend of the child’s mother, who had asked him to pick up the child. He is listed as the owner of the car, police said.
A search warrant for the car has been requested as part of the investigation.
The child was taken to Children’s Hospital Boston for surgery and remains in critical but stable condition, Harrington said. No one else was injured.
The men are expected to be arraigned Tuesday, according to police.
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