A 7-year-old boy is dead and another child is recovering from injuries after a rollover crash at the intersection of New Carlisle Pike and North Tecumseh Road in Clark County on Sunday afternoon. Troopers arrested one of the two drivers involved on suspicion of operating a vehicle impaired, even as early findings pointed to a right-of-way failure as a triggering factor in the collision.
Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers from the Springfield Post responded to the crash at about 3:25 p.m. Sunday, according to WHIO TV. Troopers determined that 38-year-old Micah Newburg was driving a 2019 Volkswagen Atlas south on North Tecumseh Road when the SUV failed to yield at a stop sign to oncoming traffic that had the right-of-way, per the patrol. The Volkswagen went off-road through the southwest corner of the intersection before a 2013 Kia Soul, driven west on New Carlisle Pike by 69-year-old William Daniel, struck it, causing the Kia to overturn.
Seven-year-old Theodore Newburg died at the scene. Micah Newburg, who had two children in the Volkswagen, was treated at the scene for minor injuries, as was Daniel. A second child, a 9-year-old boy, was transported to Dayton Children's Hospital with minor injuries — a facility that serves as the region's only American College of Surgeons-verified Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center, according to the hospital's own description of its emergency services.
OVI Arrest Complicates the Fault Picture
Despite the preliminary finding that the Volkswagen failed to yield, state troopers arrested Daniel, the Kia's driver, on suspicion of OVI at the scene, per OSHP. That arrest sets up a legal question that investigators and prosecutors will still need to untangle: whether Theodore Newburg's death was caused by the Volkswagen's failure to yield, by Daniel's alleged impairment, or by some combination of both factors.
Under Ohio Revised Code Section 2903.06, causing a fatal crash while operating a vehicle under the influence can lead to aggravated vehicular homicide charges — a felony carrying mandatory prison terms of up to 10 years and the potential for a lifetime driver's license suspension, according to Zukerman Law. Proving that charge requires establishing proximate cause, meaning crash reconstructionists will need to determine how much of the outcome traces to impairment versus the right-of-way violation. A standard first-time OVI conviction alone, without a fatality attached, carries far lighter mandatory penalties under Ohio Revised Code Section 4511.19 — at least three days in jail or a driver intervention program, fines between $565 and $1,075, and a license suspension of one to three years, per The Boerst Law Office.
Toxicology results for both drivers and data on vehicle restraint usage remain outstanding, and both are expected to factor into whether prosecutors pursue vehicular homicide, child endangerment, or other charges once the Springfield Post completes its investigation. The crash remains under investigation, and no charges beyond Daniel's OVI arrest have been confirmed.
A History of Concern at This Intersection
The intersection of Tecumseh Road and New Carlisle Pike has drawn scrutiny from local officials before. Clark County Commission meeting minutes from 2017 document historical traffic concerns at the narrow crossing, where county officials previously installed rumble strips and evaluated widening the interchange, according to the Board of Clark County Commissioners.
Fatal crashes are not new to Clark County. State highway patrol statistical records show the county logged 18 fatal traffic crashes in 2023, 17 in 2022, and 22 in 2021, with OVI a factor in 11 of the fatal crashes in both 2022 and 2023. A separate regional safety report also recorded 673 crashes involving unbelted drivers in Clark County between 2022 and early 2023, resulting in 30 serious injuries and nine fatalities, per WHIO's earlier reporting on the same patrol data.
Impaired Driving Remains a Statewide Problem
Sunday's crash lands amid what state data describes as a persistent impaired-driving crisis in Ohio. Provisional figures from the Ohio State Highway Patrol show the state recorded 540 OVI-related fatal crashes resulting in 593 deaths in 2025, while troopers average roughly 25,000 OVI arrests annually, according to the Richland Source. Traffic safety data compiled for the state also show that 32.2% of Ohio motor vehicle crash deaths between 2019 and 2023 involved alcohol impairment, above the national average of 26.1%, per Franklin County CARES.
Nationally, the toll is steep as well. Alcohol-impaired driving crashes caused 11,904 deaths across the United States in 2024, or roughly one death every 44 minutes, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. In Clark County, the investigation into exactly what caused Theodore Newburg's death continues, with troopers from the Springfield Post still working to reconstruct the sequence of events at the intersection.
