Car Crash Injures 6 at Day-Care Center : Accident: Vehicle plows through a block wall and lands in a sandbox. Teachers, bystanders and driver lift car off youngsters.

Six toddlers at an Orange County day-care center were injured Monday when a car careened through a block wall then landed in a sandbox atop several youngsters.

Teachers, bystanders and the car’s driver lifted the front end of the Datsun B-210 to free the children. Witnesses said the 43-year-old driver, who was arrested, also helped pull some of the injured tots from under the car, then ran to call 911 to summon help to the Early Childhood Schools Children’s Village.

“He just flew into the playground and hit the kids,” said Sheila Mullins, a teacher at the day-care center on heavily traveled Westminster Avenue. She said one child pinned under the car appeared “almost like he was folded in half.”

Two youngsters were airlifted to a Santa Ana trauma hospital. It was initially feared that both had suffered critical head injuries. But after they were evaluated by emergency room physicians, their condition was found to be not that serious.

“Everyone was screaming and yelling,” said teacher Theresa Aguilar. “If (the driver) hadn’t helped lift the car up, I don’t know what would have happened to the kids.”

Police arrested the driver, Darrell Emerson Nelson, on suspicion of felony drunk driving. Officers said they noticed the odor of alcohol on Nelson and that he failed balance and coordination tests.

A blood test taken at the police station showed that the convenience store worker had a blood alcohol level of 0.04%, or half the legal threshold to be considered legally drunk, authorities said. However, Garden Grove police investigator Mike Clabaugh said Nelson would remain in custody pending further tests for other controlled substances.

“That will determine whether we seek to charge him with felony drunk driving,” Clabaugh said.

By late Monday afternoon, all of the children were listed in serious to stable condition at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange and a clinic in Garden Grove.

Cheryl Stoopes, mother of injured Rachel Stoopes, arrived at the school minutes after her daughter had been airlifted to Western Medical Center. The distraught mother approached the shaken driver and shouted: “See what you did! Thanks a lot!”

Stoopes said later her daughter suffered a bump on the head and a cut lip.

Stoopes said she does not blame the school for the accidents, but she wondered whether she would send Rachel or her sibling back to the center out of concern that such an accident could occur again.

Of the driver, Stoopes said: “To be able to go through a block wall . . . he must have been going fast.”

Police said the accident occurred as Nelson was on his way to pick up a job application at the day-care center for his wife. Nelson told investigators he was trying to make a left turn into the school parking lot when he swerved and sped up to avoid hitting an oncoming van.