2 teens have critical injuries from Huntley-area crash Friday; 3rd teen also injured

Two 14-year-old boys who were passengers in a car received life-threatening injuries when it crashed Friday evening near Huntley, the Kane County Sheriff’s Office said in a Monday news release.

The 16-year-old driver was also injured, police said, and speed was considered to be a factor in the single-car crash.

Police said one of the younger boys, the rear seat passenger, was flown to Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago with head and torso injuries, while the other was flown to Loyola Medical Center in Maywood with a broken femur. Both teens reside in Lake in the Hills.

The older teen, from Huntley, was driven after the crash to Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital by his parents with what were described as serious injuries, including a possible concussion.

The crash happened about 7:30 p.m. Friday in the 44W900 block of Dietrich Road, west of U.S. Route 20 in Hampshire Township. Authorities said they believe the car the 16-year-old was driving, a 2024 blue Hyundai Elantra, was speeding east down Dietrich when it “went airborne and exited the roadway. The driver attempted to gain control of the vehicle and returned the vehicle back onto the roadway of Dietrich Road, but then slid sideways, coming to a stop at a tree,” the sheriff’s office said in the release, adding the car “sustained heavy passenger side damage from hitting the tree, and both passengers had to be extricated.”

The sheriff’s office and the Kane County Drone Unit continued to investigate, and authorities said they’ve found that one or more witnesses to the incident captured the crash as it occurred on video. Those witnesses are still being interviewed and the video analyzed, according to the release. No charges or citations had yet been authorized but authorities said there could be an announcement on that soon.

It’s not clear if airbags deployed or if seatbelts were in use when the crash happened.

The section of road where the crash occurred “is not new to serious and fatal injury crashes that the Kane County Sheriff’s Office has investigated,” according to the release, describing Dietrich as “a narrow 2-lane rural road with narrow shoulders and multiple crests and dips. Several crash scenes have been located in and around this particular area due to several significant crests in the road.” The speed limit there is 40 mph.

Under Illinois’ graduated drivers license law, someone who has held a license for less than a year and is under age 18 is permitted to have only one passenger under age 20 in the car with them, unless the passenger is a sibling or stepsibling, or a child or stepchild of the driver.