Hamburg, Ashley County, Arkansas - Jerry Breedlove, above, of the Hamburg Fire Department looks over the wreckage of an Aerostar van east of Hamburg on Thursday afternoon. A head-on collision between a 1989 Ford Aerostar van and a 1995 GMC utility van about 2.7 miles east of Hamburg on Thursday, February 22, has resulted in four deaths.

According to Arkansas State Trooper Dale Donham, Charles T. “Pete” Wells, 30, of 265 Ashley Road 425, Hamburg, was driving the Ford van westbound on Highway 82 when for some unknown reason, it crossed the center line and hit the GMC Aramark service van, which was eastbound, virtually head on.

The front headlight of the Aerostar van hit almost in the center of the front of the utility van, and that light ended up embedded in the front of the service vehicle. After the impact, both vehicles ended up in the ditch on the south side of the highway, with the Aerostar van overturned.

Fire and rescue personnel from the Hamburg and Crossett Fire Departments responded to the call, as well as Pafford Ambulance and a Crossett Fire Department ambulance. When they arrived, the emergency personnel found Wells and his wife, Heather Dawn Wells, 25, in the front seat of the Aerostar. Apparently neither had been wearing seat belts. In the rear of the van, the emergency personnel found two children hanging suspended from their seat belts.

Ashley County Coroner Steve Hartshorn pronounced one of the children, Anderson Kye Wells, who would have been four years old on Friday, dead at the scene. The child was in the rear seat behind the driver. After rescue personnel extracted Mrs. Wells from the van, the coroner also pronounced her dead at the scene. Wells was transported to the University Hospital at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences where he was pronounced dead at 1:57 a.m Friday.

The second child, seated in the passenger’s side on the back seat of the van, Dustin T. Edwards, age four, was taken to the Ashley County Medical Center and later airlifted to the Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock. As of Friday afternoon, he was listed in critical condition in the pediatric intensive care unit, the State Trooper said. The county corner confirmed Monday that the child had died at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital on Sunday.

The driver of the Aramark utility van, William C. Carmical, 38, of 1172 Groome, Greenville, MS, was transported to the Ashley County Medical Center for treatment of a head injury. He was released after treatment. Carmical was wearing a seat belt.

Trooper Donham noted that there has been a lot of speculation as to why the Aerostar van was on the wrong side of the road, but he has not found any reason for that fact. As of Friday afternoon, the investigation was continuing. The trooper also noted that the Aramark van had left 99 feet of skid marks before the collision, while there was no sign of skid marks on the part of the Aerostar van.

Trooper Donham said that a contributing factor in the accident was the Wells vehicle being on the wrong side of the road. There were no contributing factors listed for the Aramark van. The trooper also noted that there was no indication of drugs or alcohol on the part of people in either vehicle.