Teenage girls in traumatic golf cart crash in Wake County expected to recover, family says

WAKE FOREST, N.C. (WNCN) — Two teenage girls spent the weekend recovering at the Duke Trauma Center in Durham after the golf cart they were in was obliterated by a minivan near Wake Forest late Friday afternoon. Friends and family said one of the girls has left the hospital and the other is awaiting surgery. Neighbors in the Stonybend community said they see golfcarts speeding through the neighborhood almost every day. "They have no seatbelts on, driving fast and making turns faster than I would in car. It's pretty hazardous," said Lance Tegen, Wake Forest resident. Reported around 4:50 p.m., the golf cart and minivan collision drew a large emergency response to the 7700 block of Stony Hill Road, near Stonewyck Lane, northwest of the Town of Wake Forest. Chief of the Northern Wake Fire Department, Blake Wright, told a CBS 17 crew on the scene that both teenage girls were sent to Duke Hospital for traumatic injuries. The other driver in the crash, a man behind the wheel of a minivan, was not injured, Wright added. He said crews were on the scene within minutes. The investigation and cleanup had crews closing parts of Stony Hill Road for hours. "I just live in the neighborhood down there," Ciara Romero said about the crash delays on Friday evening. "So I just, like, to try to go through this neighborhood. I eventually made it but my house is like three minutes away." One woman who lives nearby and talked to CBS 17 off camera said there are no golf carts in her neighborhood, but she often sees teenagers from a nearby golf club driving carts along streets. "A lot of times, they don't even stop at the stop signs in our subdivision. There is a concern for the safety for those kids. And obviously, you know, what happened here with this accident really does raise some concern," the woman said. "And, you know, as far as the safety and the golf carts and where they should ride and where they should not ride." The anonymous woman said her heart goes out to the girls injured in the golf cart crash, but she believes there are too many kids in the area driving golf carts recklessly. "They've got the pedal to the metal, but they're young kids. Yeah, they're teenagers. Maybe some of them are even younger than that," the woman said. "And oftentimes they'll have kids piled on, you know, more than what should be allowed in a golf cart, given the number of seats that were there. So definitely a safety concern." Officials have not determined which vehicle was at fault and what led to the wreck. CBS 17 has reached out to investigators with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol and has received no additional information.