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Two brothers who survived the 2018 Parkland High School mass shooting were among those injured in the fatal Florida car crash allegedly caused by a street racer over the weekend.
Connor and Brandon Dietrich were among 15 victims struck outside Bradley’s Bar in Tampa at around 12:40 a.m. on Saturday when a Toyota Camry barreled through an intersection and slammed into a crowd, killing four.
Brandon was medically cleared after the tragedy, but Connor is in critical condition with a “skull fracture, a lacerated spleen and several broken bones,” a GoFundMe set up by their uncle, Bill Muter, revealed.
The brothers were with their best friend, Riley Hancock — who was also left in critical condition from the deadly crash — when 22-year-old suspect Silas Sampson plowed into the crowd of people outside the popular bar after he was allegedly street racing.
Their father, Bob Dietrich, said Brandon was pinned against a glass wall by the vehicle but was able to free himself and rushed over to assist his brother and friend.
“He finds Connor lying in a puddle of blood; he finds what he didn’t realize was Riley at first, but he saw somebody with a severe laceration on their forehead and then realized that’s Riley,” he told WKYC.
“He just kind of jumped into action.”
Their devastated father said Brandon’s instinct to rush toward the wounded was forged six years earlier, when he and his brother were trapped in a classroom during the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead.
“He’s never opened up to us about that, and I was afraid we were going to have the same kind of an issue with this,” Bob Dietrich said of Brandon.
“But surprisingly, you can see it in his eyes, he’s struggling, but he’s talking, which is, that’s the most important thing he can do, so he’s doing remarkably well.”
Bob Dietrich said that the horrifying experience that day helped Brandon stay calm during the chaotic aftermath of the deadly crash.
While Brandon walked away without major injuries, his brother, Connor, was left in critical condition with a “long, uncertain, and incredibly difficult” road to recovery ahead, Muter wrote.
“Our entire family is deeply shaken by the tragedy,” he wrote.
Their father told WKYC the family won’t know the full extent of Connor’s brain injuries until the MRI results come back.
“We just don’t know; I don’t know if I’m going to have my son back,” he said.
Investigators said Sampson was taken into custody at the scene and now faces 14 felony charges for allegedly causing the fatal crash.
The 22-year-old suspect has been charged with four counts of vehicular homicide, four counts of aggravated fleeing to elude involving serious bodily injury, three counts of fleeing to elude high-speed serious bodily injury, and three counts of reckless driving with serious bodily injury, WTSP reported.
He is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday morning for a pretrial detention hearing.
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