Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 18, 1994 TAG: 9410180126
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELLISTON LENGTH: Medium
Bonnie H. Wheat died in Roanoke Memorial Hospital from injuries suffered when her car went out of control Sunday morning on a winding, rural road near Shawsville and landed upside down in the South Fork of the Roanoke River.
Wheat's children, Danny Lee Niday Jr., 2, and Samantha Dawn Niday, 7 weeks, died shortly after the accident on Alleghany Springs Road.
Monday afternoon, the news was just starting to sink in for Michelle Westmoreland, the victims' next-door neighbor. Jessica Westmoreland, 3, doesn't yet know that her playmate Danny Lee won't be back.
``They got along real good,'' Michelle Westmoreland said of Danny Lee and her daughter, as Jessica played just out of earshot with her doll and stuffed bunny. ``I couldn't stop thinking about them last night.''
She said Danny Lee used to cuddle next to Jessica and peck her on the cheek. Jessica hasn't asked where her friend is yet, but Westmoreland knows it's only a matter of time before she'll have to explain it to her daughter.
While she wasn't close to Wheat, Westmoreland said they occasionally walked together with their children in Heslip's Trailer Park just off U.S. 460 where they lived. Sometimes, she recalled, the children's father, Danny Lee Niday Sr., used to ride his son on the back of his motorcycle up and down the park's single, bumpy road.
Wheat had lived in the trailer park for about five years and had begun work at Valleydale Foods in Salem only about a week ago.
Monday at the accident scene on Alleghany Springs Road near Shawsville, State Trooper Eddie Bowen blamed speed for the wreck. Bowen, an accident reconstruction expert, based his assessment on tire marks and the report of an witness who was standing on a bridge over the South Fork of the Roanoke River on Georges Run Road.
The witness heard the tires of Wheat's car squeal as the car approached a curve at the roads' intersection. There were no other cars in the vicinity, the witness told Bowen, himself just a half-mile away when the accident report crackled over his radio. He estimated that Wheat's car was traveling ``about 60 miles per hour.'' The speed limit at the curve is 30 mph, and there are no guardrails.
The vehicle slipped off the graveled right-hand shoulder just beyond the intersection, then slid sideways onto grass along the riverbank - about 20 feet above the water's edge - before striking a large rock and flipping.
Bowen said the car rolled over once, knocked down a tree and landed on its top in four feet of water - the deepest part of the stream. Water entered the car from a shattered driver's-side window.
A passer-by tried to rescue the victims but became chilled by the water. The would-be rescuer told Bowen that he could not see anyone in the car and left before the trooper could get his name.
Bowen called for a diver to join the rescue squads already on their way to the scene. He estimated that the victims were underwater for nine or 10 minutes before rescue workers, responding within minutes from Shawsville and Christiansburg, could remove them from the car. ``They were all strapped in,'' Bowen reported.
Several accidents have occurred at the curve, Bowen said, including other fatal wrecks. Virginia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Laura Bullock said Monday that her department is ``aware of the situation and it has been a topic of discussion in our office since early this morning.''
Bullock said a VDOT maintenance engineer will investigate the well-traveled, meandering road to see if additional safety measures - including guardrails and more warning signs - are warranted and feasible.
Services for Wheat and the children will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at John M. Oakey and Son funeral home, 305 Boulevard, Salem.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB