Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 29, 1994 TAG: 9407290089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
State police said Judith Lorraine Paulson, 46, apparently was going too fast as she came down the ramp's sharp curve onto southbound U.S. 220.
Her load of household goods shifted and the rig turned over, slid several feet and slammed into a concrete embankment underneath the interstate.
Paulson, of Fontana, Calif., was pinned inside the cab for more than half an hour as rescue squad members and firefighters worked frantically to cut and pry her out.
After they got her out, they pronounced her dead.
Her passenger, Sylvan Duke Jr., of Oklahoma City, Okla., was taken to Roanoke Memorial Hospital for treatment. He was in satisfactory condition late Thursday.
The pair were a driving team for CRST, a large long-haul freight company based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The accident happened about 3:40 p.m. at I-81's busy Daleville exit.
Bobby Everett, a trucker from Georgia who was heading north on 220, said Paulson was going too fast to negotiate the ramp.
After the truck flipped and smashed into the concrete wall, Everett ran to the cab.
The cab had hit the concrete right at the steering column. Paulson was pinned under the wheel and the roof was caved in on top of her, Everett said.
Her body was bent at an almost 45-degree angle, state police said.
``I'm almost sure her neck was broken,'' Everett said. ``It'll take an autopsy to tell for sure, but I spent 20 years in the Army. I was in Vietnam.''
Paulson tried to speak, he said, but ``I couldn't make out what she was saying. Then she pointed to her throat.''
She motioned over her head and Everett realized there was an injured man pinned in the sleeper compartment just above the front seats.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB