Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 21, 1992 TAG: 9201210338
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Medium
RUNAWAY CAR KILLS TEACHER WOMAN CRUSHED IN FREAK ACCIDENT
An elementary schoolteacher died Monday afternoon after her car drifted down a driveway, crushing her between an open passenger door and a concrete post beside the driveway.Lesia Plummer Martindale, 33, a preschool teacher of handicapped children at Breckinridge Elementary School, died as rescue workers rushed her to Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
Police said Martindale parked her station wagon in the driveway of a baby sitter's house at about 4 p.m. and went in to pick up her 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son.
Martindale put her daughter in the front seat and had put the son in the back seat when the car began rolling backwards down a paved driveway. The driveway had a 25- to 30-degree slope and had lamp posts with concrete bases on each side, police said.
The car rolled almost 90 feet as Martindale ran along the passenger side of the car trying to get her son out.
Virginia State Trooper R.B. Osborne said the woman suffered severe head injuries when she was pinned between the inside of the car door and one of two posts. The car came to rest in a ditch on the other side of Route 630, about three miles east of Fincastle.
"Other than the door, there was no damage at all" to the car, Osborne said, noting the freak nature of the accident. Martindale's daughter had a cut lip, but her son was unharmed.
Osborne said police believe one of the children may have shifted the car's gears, causing it to roll away.
Breckinridge Principal Weldon Martin, whose wife came upon the accident just after it happened, said Martindale worked with mainly 3- and 4-year-olds. He described Martindale, of Roanoke, as a "fine teacher."
School officials were trying to contact students' parents, he said. Counselors would be at the school today, "to help us get through what's going to be a difficult day."
"It's a real blow to us," said Botetourt County Superintendent Clarence McClure. "Kind of a freak accident . . . tragic like that. It's got everybody stunned."
Keywords:
FATALITY