Local news Makes National News

[rdywenur]

This is a very tragic story that happened here a few weeks ago. I just logged on line and it appears it now is making national headlines. My thought was 5 girls , just graduated, heading for the lake.....they were probabbly not paying attention to driving. Now as a result of more probing it appears they may have been text messaging. Teens and adults both need to stop using their cell phones while driving. It is bad enough we must be in on everyones conversations in public but this is a bit more serious. Maybe there should be tougher enforced laws for cell phone users as is with seatblets...not that they are enforced that much either but at least they get ticketed. Almost every car you drive by today someone is on the phone. This acceident happened in the blink of an eye and probably could have been avoided.

tinyurl.com/29ddlw

[Jaga]

rdywenur said:

This is a very tragic story that happened here a few weeks ago. I just logged on line and it appears it now is making national headlines. My thought was 5 girls , just graduated, heading for the lake.....they were probabbly not paying attention to driving. Now as a result of more probing it appears they may have been text messaging. Teens and adults both need to stop using their cell phones while driving. It is bad enough we must be in on everyones conversations in public but this is a bit more serious. Maybe there should be tougher enforced laws for cell phone users as is with seatblets...not that they are enforced that much either but at least they get ticketed. Almost every car you drive by today someone is on the phone. This acceident happened in the blink of an eye and probably could have been avoided.

tinyurl.com/29ddlw

Chris,

I have heard about this text messaging story. How careless people are? How you can drive and do text messaging? Here in IF we had a similar accident a couple of days ago. 4 teens were driving early in the morning, somehow they ended up on the side of the road, three were killed instantly.

[Jaga]

It is hard to believe that this accident happened during the weekend to the girl I know personally. This is not the first time. She was hit in a freak accident a couple of years ago when she was pregnant (she was driving the car and something just stroke her with a piece of wood or metal falling from a truck driving from the opposite direction). She was then in almost critical state but her baby was OK.

This time it is also very strange accident. One thing, she was walking on a street without a sidewalk.

My husband works with her husband, she used to work at the dentist we attent, thanks to her.

www.jacksonholenews.com/article.php?art_id=1982

Car strikes runner, baby

By Johanna Love
Date: July 16, 2007

A woman was injured Sunday when a vehicle struck her while she was running and pushing a baby stroller about 9 a.m. in Grand Teton National Park.

Michelle Benson, 38, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, was treated at St. John’s Medical Center and then airlifted to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, said St. John’s spokeswoman Karen Connelly. Idaho Falls hospital officials confirmed that Benson was a patient but did not have a condition listed for her Sunday evening. The 20-month-old child was taken to St. John’s but was reportedly uninjured.

Benson and her husband were staying at the Gros Ventre Campground with their child, who Benson was pushing in the stroller when she went for a run Sunday morning along Gros Ventre Road. Benson was headed west back toward the campground when a vehicle struck her from behind. The child was well-secured in the stroller and Benson “took the full brunt of impact,” said Chief Ranger Andy Fisher.

A purple jogging stroller with bent wheels lay in the sagebrush Sunday as rangers worked the scene of the crash, less than a mile west of Kelly on the heavily traveled road.

The driver was a 26-year-old woman, a student at the Teton Science Schools’ graduate program. The case is under investigation, and no charges had been filed by press time.

Fisher said there was no evidence the woman had braked or slowed at all before impact so she was probably distracted by something and traveling about 45 mph, the speed limit, when she hit Benson.

“It’s a very unforgiving road,” Fisher said. “There is no shoulder. Anybody with a wheeled vehicle is going to be on the pavement. Don’t take anything for granted.”

With bicyclists and pedestrians and thousands of cars on Gros Ventre Road each weekend day, Fisher said, everyone must be aware of the surroundings.

“Be responsible for your own safety,” Fisher said. “Pay attention to your surroundings. Drivers have to drive defensively, but pedestrians and others do, too.”