Girl, 13, Dies After Striking Utility Pole While Leaning Out of Car Window

A 13-year-old girl has died after she was struck by a utility pole while leaning out of the window of a car in Indiana.

Kelly Hume was traveling in the car driven by her older sister when the vehicle left the roadway in Crown Point, Lake County city, on Saturday night.

The teenager was thrown from the car at about 8 p.m. in the 4500 block of West 113th Avenue in the single-car accident, police said.

She was pronounced dead at the scene, having died from blunt force trauma, the Northwest Indiana Times reported.

An investigation by the Lake County Sheriff's Department Traffic Unit, as cited by The Times, found Hume was leaning out the window of a car driven by her 18-year-old sister when the vehicle left the road on a steep incline.

The 13-year-old struck a utility pole and was dragged and thrown from the car, investigators said.

Authorities are investigating if cellphone use may have been a factor in the accident and other circumstances surrounding the fatality, including possible negligence, also remain under investigation.

"The Lake County Sheriff's Department Traffic Unit is conducting traffic reconstruction of this incident, and the investigation continues," Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the family at this extremely difficult time."

Crown Point police and fire crews and the Lake County coroner assisted at the scene.

Newsweek has contacted the Crown Point Police Department and the Lake County Sheriff's Department for comment.

On November 12, Newsweek reported how a high school senior lost both her legs in a head-on car crash in Utah.

Sarah Frei, 17, had just finished junior year at Clearfield High School when she was invited to spend the weekend at a friend's cabin in Bear Lake.

The trip was ending on July 30 when the friends began to drive back home after dinner through the Logan Canyon.

Sarah said she was in the back passenger seat and wearing a seatbelt when the accident occurred.

"I don't actually remember what happened next with the accident or a couple of weeks afterwards, but I have been told since that we were driving through and an alleged drunk driver came from the opposite direction and hit the car head on," she explained.

"We were in the canyon with no cell service for an hour and all four of us were injured, but my injuries were the most extreme."

Some passersby stopped to help before emergency services arrived and took her to Logan Regional Hospital before deciding to take her by Life Flight to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City.

Sarah was left paralyzed and doctors were forced to amputate both of her legs.