Five injured when teen drives off road near Gurnee, strikes tree

Five people were injured Monday night when a teenage boy drove off the road and his vehicle struck a tree near north suburban Gurnee.

Around 8:30 p.m., Lake County sheriff’s deputies responded to a traffic crash in the 26200 block of North Grandwood Drive in unincorporated Gurnee, according to sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Christopher Covelli.

Deputies found a 2013 Kia Rio with significant damage, Covelli said. The Kia had been traveling northwest on North Grandwood Drive in the area of Lakeview Terrace, when for an unknown reason, the vehicle left the road and hit a tree.

The 16-year-old Gurnee boy who’d been driving then ran away from the car, Covelli said. He was found nearby by police and taken to a local hospital for an injury suffered in the crash.

Four other people remained in the Kia, including a 16-year-old Waukegan boy, a 16-year-old Grayslake girl, a 20-year-old man from Round Lake Heights, and a 21-year-old Waukegan woman, Covelli said.

The Waukegan boy was taken to Advocate Condell Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, and remains in critical condition, Covelli said. The three others in the car were transported to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.

The crash remains under investigation by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Technical Crash Investigations Unit, Covelli said. Charges are pending.