Crash victim airlifted

STUARTS DRAFT – A woman was airlifted to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville after a crash Wednesday afternoon on Stuarts Draft Highway.

Colleen Harvey, 25, was driving northbound around 4 p.m. when her Mitsubishi Diamante careened off the road, clipped a row of mailboxes and barrelled between a small tree and a sign before smashing into a larger tree, Virginia State Police Master Trooper W.H. Reid said.

Harvey, with a last known address of Bland County, was taken to Augusta Health in Fishersville. Reid said he did not know the extent of her injuries.

A passenger in the car, Christen Mae Pennington, 28, of Rockbridge County, was treated at the scene and was being moved into the intensive care unit at U.Va. Medical Center later Wednesday evening, Reid said. No one else was hurt.

Following a school bus stop, the Mitsubishi Diamante, heading north and moving faster than the speed of traffic, veered off the road on the opposite side driving through the grass in front of Reynolds and Hamrick Funeral Home and Crematory before passing the entrance to Killdeer Lane, Reid said.

No skid marks were apparent either on the road or in the grass.

Harvey was wearing a seat belt, but Pennington was not, the trooper said. Both the driver’s-side and passenger-side airbag deployed. Harvey received a ticket for reckless driving.

Two tires were flattened on a Chevrolet Monte Carlo heading south on Stuarts Draft Highway as the woman driving that car steered to avoid the Diamante, Reid said.

In May 2008, a three-car crash at the same location killed Cheryl Lynn Sheaves, of Grottoes. Jeremy Rasnake, of Staunton, was sentenced to four months in prison in March 2009 after being convicted of involuntary DUI manslaughter for his role in that crash.