Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 30, 1994 TAG: 9406300126
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
After she left, Bishop, 74, got onto Interstate 81, heading north in the southbound lanes. She caused several minor accidents before her confused trip ended near Exit 114 in a fiery crash with a flatbed truck and a modular home hauler.
Bishop, of South Franklin Street in Christiansburg, was airlifted to Roanoke Memorial Hospital. Trooper Dirk Compton of the Virginia State Police said he was told Bishop had serious head injuries.
She was in very serious condition in the neurotrauma intensive care unit Wednesday night.
The two truck drivers were not injured and were able to crawl to safety through smoke and flames in their cabs.
Compton said Bishop apparently got on I-81 at the Virginia 8 interchange and drove south on the northbound shoulder for 21/2 miles. She then cut across the median strip and began driving north in the southbound lanes.
Bishop caused four accidents while driving in the northbound lanes before she hit the flatbed head on, Compton said.
Rick Stover of Radford saw Bishop driving in the wrong lane as he drove from Radford to Salem. He raced to a median crossover, jumped out of his car and waved his arms at the woman, trying to get her attention.
"She was coming right up the middle of the road," Stover said. "She threw her hands up like she didn't have a care in the world."
After the crash, Stover said, "I went running to the car. I didn't see any life at all. I just backed off ... I hope she makes it."
In the wreck's aftermath, traffic was at a standstill for miles down I-81. Drivers - some with radios cranked up, some walking dogs - got out of their idling cars and sat on guardrails, craning their necks for a look at the wreckage ahead.
Traffic was still knotted at 5:30, even after one lane was reopened. Detours caused backups in the town during evening rush hour.
A second serious wreck was reported four miles north at Exit 118 when two cars collided in the backed-up traffic.
State Police and Montgomery County deputies investigated the more than a half-dozen wrecks, and Christiansburg Rescue Squad and Fire Department volunteers were kept busy getting to all of them along the snarled 13-mile stretch of highway. Compton said Christiansburg and Radford police also rerouted traffic and interviewed witnesses.
Roy Phillips, who was driving the flatbed truck for New River Valley Workshop, was in the left southbound lane when he saw a car in the northbound lane flashing its lights at him.
He then saw Bishop's car approaching - at a speed of 55 mph or less, he estimates.
Phillips, who was returning from Roanoke, doesn't remember his immediate reaction, but he ended up colliding with a truck, hauling half a modular home, that had been traveling in the right lane.
The two trucks ended up against a hill on the right shoulder of the road, and a fire erupted, burning the cabs of both trucks and about one-fifth of the home.
"I never did see her," said Carl Turner of Rich Creek, the modular-home hauler.
Turner had taken the first half of the house to Bland County and was on his way with the second half.
by CNB