RENO, Nev., May 14 (UPI) -- A suspected drunken driver was in a Reno jail Tuesday following a horrific head-on collision that killed five members of a Utah family, four of them children, and closed down heavily traveled Interstate 80 for several hours.
Stephen Scharosch, 51, Grass Valley, Calif., suffered only minor injuries when he smashed head-on into two vans carrying the Utah group Monday night while allegedly driving in the wrong direction on I-80, 30 miles east of Sparks.
"It is the worst crash I've ever seen," Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Patrick McGill told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
The Nevada Highway Patrol said four children under the age of 8 died along with their aunt in the wreck; eight others were injured.
The Meza-Arriaga family was traveling from San Jose back to West Jordan, Utah in one of two vans when Scharosch's 1989 Ford Mustang struck both vehicles. The impact tore the Mustang in half and left steel debris scattered over a 200-yard area.
The eastbound lanes of I-80 were not reopened until 7 a.m. Tuesday.
The victims who were killed were identified as Gloria Meza-Arriage, 38; Marco, 9; Alejandro, 7, Tito 3, and a 4-year-old girl whose name was not released; two other adults and a 2-year-old girl were critically injured.
The other van involved in the accident, driven by Robert Collins, 28, was also struck causing minor injuries to three of the five occupants.
Scharosch, a retired firefighter, was booked on seven counts of felony driving under the influence. Five of the counts involved deaths while the other two included the causing of substantial bodily harm, authorities said.
The newspaper reported that rescue workers found Scharosch to be allegedly extremely intoxicated and also discovered empty beer cans in the wreckage of his vehicle.
