It was supposed to be a funny video for their online subscribers. Little did five YouTubers know that their idea would result in the tragic death of a 5-year-old child.
A Lamborghini SUV in which five Italian content creators were filming a clip crashed Wednesday evening into a Smart city-car, killing a 5-year-old and seriously injuring his 3-year-old sister and a 29-year-old mother in Casal Palocco, near Rome.
The five members of the YouTube channel ‘The Borderline’ were reportedly recording a video challenge consisting of driving a car for 50 consecutive hours. According to investigators, 20-year-old Matteo Di Pietro was the one driving the car at the time of the accident.
Mr. Di Pietro tested negative for alcohol but positive for cannabinoids and now faces charges of vehicular homicide, which carries a prison term of 2 to 7 years. Other passengers, all in their early twenties, could be charged with conspiracy should it be determined that they were filming a video in the stages leading up to the crash.
Prosecutors in Rome are working to ascertain how fast the SUV was cruising, while police seized the young men’s cell phones to gather more information about the online challenge.
When rescuers arrived, the 5-year-old child’s condition immediately appeared to be grave, due to cardiac arrest. The boy was pronounced dead a few minutes later at Grassi Hospital in Ostia. The other two people involved in the accident have been discharged from the hospital in the past few hours.
