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Preschoolers drive, crash SUV

The brothers, ages 4 and 2, opened two locked doors and used the garage door opener before driving away.

PENSACOLA - A pair of preschoolers managed to get through two locked doors and activate a garage door opener before taking their mother's sport utility vehicle on a wild ride across a golf course, their father said Wednesday.

Dr. Michael Hennessey, an obstetrician, said sons Patrick, 4, and William, 2, were at home and on the mend after being treated for injuries suffered when the older boy crashed the SUV into a tree on the golf course near their Shalimar home, about 40 miles east of Pensacola.

"They'll never get their licenses," Hennessey said in a telephone interview.

Patrick required surgery at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola to close a gash on his face received when the vehicle's air bags deployed, Hennessey said. His brother, who had gotten into the back seat and fastened his safety belt, was treated at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center for a broken nose.

Hennessey plans to install a door alarm because the tots have foiled every other effort to keep them from sneaking out of the house, including deadbolt locks and a butterfly latch they were able to reach by standing on a stool.

The doctor was at his office and his wife, Ronda, was showering at their home Monday when the boys went for their wild ride. Neither is talking about what happened, but Hennessey surmises they were trying to visit an aunt who lives nearby.

After going with their mother to take an older brother to school, Patrick and William wanted to see the aunt. Their mother refused, saying they needed to go home and get cleaned up for a shopping trip.

"They threw a fit," Hennessey said.

The boys unlocked one door to get out of the house and another to get into the garage and then used the remote control to open the main garage door, Hennessey said. Their mother had left her car keys in her purse in the vehicle, authorities said.

He said he was grateful for a quick response by neighbors, golf course personnel, police, firefighters and ambulance and helicopter crews that took the boys to hospitals.

"It could have turned out very, very tragically, especially on a golf course with water hazards," Hennessey said.

"As far as imagining the kinds of things that could hurt your children, this was not one of them."