One Child Dead In Hit-And-Run Crash At Florida Day Care Center

[April 10, 2014]  ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) — A car slammed into an Orlando-area day care center on Wednesday, killing a child and injuring 13 others, many of them children, officials said.

The Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children said in a statement that one child died after a hit-and-run driver crashed into a vehicle that then struck the building that houses the KinderCare day care center.

The hospital did not release the gender or age of the child.

The condition of several of the injured was "very, very serious," said Cindy Williams, a spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol.

The car that crashed into the day care center was rear-ended by a silver Dodge Durango which fled the scene, officials said.

After public pleas to help locate the vehicle, the car was found parked at an Orlando area home.

Based on information from a witness, officials are looking for a man they describe as a "person of interest" who may have been the driver, Williams said.

"We do know he is trying to flee the area ... We got information he might be trying to catch a flight out of Orlando," Williams told reporters.

(Reporting by Barbara Liston; editing by Kevin Gray, Andrew Hay and Cynthia Osterman)

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