Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his wife, Amy Reimann, as well as the couple’s 15-month-old daughter, Isla, were involved in a plane crash in Tennessee, according to multiple reports.
Elizabethton fire chief Barry Carrier told reporters that the small plane ran off the runway at Elizabethton Municipal Airport and subsequently caught on fire on Thursday, August 15, per ESPN. No one was seriously injured, though Earnhardt Jr., 44, was taken to a local hospital, according to Carter County Sheriff Dexter Lunceford. The race car driver was conscious after the incident.
Earnhardt Jr. told the outlet via text message that he and his family were OK following the crash.
In addition to the athlete, Reimann, 37, and their daughter, the plane held a pilot, another unidentified passenger and the brood’s dog.
“Everyone is safe and has been taken to the hospital for further evaluation,” Earnhardt Jr.’s sister Kelley told TMZ Sports in a statement.
Earnhardt Jr. and Reimann tied the knot in December 2016. They welcomed their first child in May 2018.
The retired NASCAR driver opened up exclusively to Us Weekly in May about his home life. “I was hoping that we would have a little girl,” he admitted at the time. “I was so scared to have a son, being a new parent. I didn’t know whether I would be a very great parent and how good I’d be at being a father. So I was nervous about that, and raising a son, I thought I’d be such an influence on him and maybe I’d have my hands full, right? And my wife, I think so much of her and how amazing she is, and I thought, ‘If we just had a little girl, … what could go wrong?’”
Earnhardt Jr. added that he loved “who she’s becoming.”
The Racing to the Finish author’s father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., died in February 2001 due to injuries from a car crash that occurred during the final lap of the Daytona 500.
