Subscribe
Community
Teen dies when SUV driver runs into pickup truck
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Ridgell
|
E-Mail This Article
"It's part of the investigation to try to figure out why that occurred," a St. Mary's sheriff's spokesperson said Monday amid the ongoing inquiry into the crash that killed 18-year-old Shana Leigh Ridgell.
The Mechanicsville teenager died after the pickup truck she was driving was struck from behind by another vehicle last Thursday afternoon, authorities report, on Route 5.
Ridgell was driving the 1997 Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck north on the highway and had stopped to let oncoming traffic go by so she could make a left turn onto Sunnyside Road, sheriff's deputies report. The truck was struck from behind by a 2004 Chevrolet Trailblazer driven by Cathrina Lynn Lindsay, 41, of Mechanicsville.
A Maryland State Police helicopter crew flew Ridgell from the site of the 5:05 p.m. accident to the Prince George's Hospital Center, where she died from her injuries, sheriff's deputies report. No injuries to Lindsay were reported.
Sheriff's deputy Cindy Allen said the investigation has indicated no contributing circumstances to the accident from the teenager's driving.
Ridgell graduated last month from Chopticon High School, where she had been recommended two years ago to a Leonardtown insurance business seeking to hire a student.
"She was very intelligent and outgoing," Fred Parsons, president of Parsons and Associates Insurance Inc., said Monday from his office at the Leonardtown Centre shopping area.
"She just got promoted to senior account representative. We got her business cards last week," Parsons said.
Ridgell sat down with her employer Thursday to discuss taking an exam to become an insurance agent, and they planned to order the study materials the next day. The accident occurred moments after Ridgell left work at 5 p.m.
"That tomorrow never came for her," Parsons said. "She was a young lady who did all the right things. Even when you do the right things, the wrong things happen."
Ridgell's friends stopped by her workplace Monday as they continue to mourn her death. "They've already put a cross up and flowers along the road," Parsons said.
The sheriff's office has requested that anyone witnessing the collision call Sgt. Edward Evans at 301-475-4200, ext. 9018.
