Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 13, 1993                   TAG: 9307130024
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: IRONTO                                LENGTH: Medium

DRIVER WAS DRUNK

A young Roanoke woman and her fiance's grandmother were also killed in the wreck.

State Police said Daniel Wayne Crook, 29, of Christiansburg, had a .22 blood-alcohol content according to toxicology tests conducted by the medical examiner's office.

In Virginia, a person with a .10 blood-alcohol content is considered to be driving under the influence.

Susan Ramona Simmons, 26, of Roanoke, died about 75 minutes after her car was struck by the van Crook was driving on Virginia 603 near Interstate 81's Ironto exit.

Her fiance's grandmother, Ruth Welcher Long, 82, of Elliston, was also killed in the wreck.

Crook's two children, a 6-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter, were in the van with him but were not seriously injured.

State police said the accident happened about 7:45 p.m. when the van ran off Virginia 603, hit a guardrail and then swerved back into the road, hitting Simmons' car in the driver's door. "The more we find out the worse it gets," Tim Long, Simmons' fiance, said two days after the wreck.

His fiancee was driving his grandmother, whom Long calls his mother because she raised him, and Ruth Long's sister - Eunice Sink of Shawville - back to their homes after having them as guests for dinner.

Long, an ambulance driver for Carilion, heard the sirens of emergency crews from his house and began to worry when Simmons did not return when she should have.

Long said Susan was "totally against" drinking and driving.

"They need to do something," Long said of prosecuting drunk drivers. "I deal with this every day. All they do with these people is slapping them on the hand."

"It's such a waste to take a young life," he said. He and Simmons had been engaged for about a year and were planning a September wedding.

Long said his stepbrother died in virtually the same spot several years ago in an auto accident.

Keywords:
FATALITY