Only hours after Tal Shachar celebrated his birthday over breakfast with his son and his son’s friend, the elder Shachar watched rescue workers prepare to pull the teenager’s body from a fatal car crash Wednesday in Deerfield.
Guy Shachar, 16, later died of multiple traumatic injuries in Highland Park Hospital, said Lake County Chief Deputy Coroner James Wipper. He was one of three fatalities in a 24-hour period on Lake County’s roads, Wipper said.
A sophomore at Deerfield High School, Guy Shachar and friend Anthony Cascino, 17, of Glencoe had no school Wednesday because of the cold.
They spent the morning with Tal Shachar before heading for another friend’s house when, according to police, Cascino lost control of the car, which struck a utility pole on Waukegan Road.
Tal Shachar coincidentally drove by the scene moments later, said Deerfield Police Cmdr. David Turnbaugh, and stopped when he recognized the car. He was escorted to the police station as the rescue team worked to remove his son from the car, Turnbaugh said.
Cascino, who was reported in stable condition Thursday in Highland Park Hospital, was charged with improper lane usage, police said.
The other fatal accident Wednesday occurred on Sheridan Road, just south of Miraflores Drive in Waukegan, when Isaac Johnson, 70, a minister who lived in Zion, apparently lost control of his car about 5 p.m. and crashed into a guard rail. He was pronounced dead in Victory Memorial Hospital, Waukegan, Wipper said.
In the third crash, Kathy Petykowski, 25, was on her way to work Thursday morning when she was broadsided by another vehicle on Illinois Highway 53 in Long Grove, Wipper said. She was pronounced dead in Good Shepherd Hospital, Barrington.