Collision Throws Sisters From Truck
A 7-year-old Burns girl, thrown from a vehicle Saturday in a collision east of Newton, has died from her injuries. Taylour Jantz died around noon Sunday at a Wichita hospital about 24 hours after the pickup her father was driving clipped a sports utility vehicle near First and East Lake roads and flipped into the ditch, Harvey County Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Van Rossun said. Her sister, 10-year-old Marissa, also was thrown from the vehicle but suffered only minor injuries. Driver Riley Kevin Jantz, 39, was not thrown from the vehicle. He was treated for his injuries and released from Newton Medical Center after the collision. The three were not wearing seat belts, Van Rossun said. The Jantz vehicle clipped the 
front end of a Chevy Blazer driven by 19-year-old Nevada Smith of Andover. Van Rossun said Smith, who was southbound on East Lake, had stopped at the intersection, but his view may have been hampered by a hedge row along the road. Smith started to cross the intersection, then saw the westbound Jantz vehicle and attempted to back out of the intersection. Smith was not injured and no charges are likely to be filed, Van Rossun said. “He stopped. It was just an accident,” he said. The Jantz vehicle “clipped the corner” of the Blazer and then rolled into a ditch on the west side of First. Taylour was a middle passenger in the vehicle. Marissa, thrown onto the road, was able to walk back to the crushed vehicle and use a cell phone to call her mother, who in turn called 9-1-1 shortly before 1 p.m., rescue workers at the scene said. (By Barry Owens, The Newton Kansan, Newton, Kansas. March 12, 2001).
Taylour M. Jantz, 7, of Burns, Kansas, died Sunday (March 11, 2001) at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita. She was born March 25, 1993, to Riley K. and Gina M. (Fine) Jantz in Marion. They survive. She attended Peabody Elementary School. Other survivors include: a sister, Marissa Jantz of Burns; a paternal grandmother, Evelyn Jantz of Burns; a maternal grandmother, Wilma Giffney of Florence; a maternal grandfather, Michael Fine of Palm Harbour, Fla.; and paternal grandparents, Tom and Velma Fine of Osage City. Visitation will be from 1 to 5 p.m. Tuesday at Petersen Funeral Home. Funeral service will be 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Eden Mennonite Church with Alvin, Lowell, Tobe and Vernon Koehn officiating. Burial will be in the Eden Mennonite Church Cemetery in Burns. Memorials have been established with the Taylour M. Jantz Memorial at Central National Bank in El Dorado in care of the funeral home. (Petersen Family Funeral Home, Newton, Kansas. March 12, 2001).
