The crash scene in front to Wheatsville Co-op. Photo/Adam Schragin - Austinist
59-year-old Linda Woodman has been charged with intoxicated manslaughter in a fatal accident on Guadalupe Sunday night. According to KXAN, Woodman had been at the hospital Sunday, where she was given morphine and percocet.
Woodman lost control of her silver Lexus SUV around 7 p.m. She ran into a bus stop and hit two people. She then careened into the middle of the Guadalupe and hit another car before coming to a stop.
Woodman killed 61-year-old Dik Van Meerten. He was hit while waiting at the bus stop. 21-year-old Sarah Lee Parker was was also hit, but she survived and is in stable condition.
Linda Woodman hit and killed 61-year-old Dik Van Meerten. Van Meerten was visiting from North Carolina.
Adam Schragin, an editor for the website Austinist, had just left Wheatsville Co-op. He heard the initial collision and then turned to see Woodman’s SUV hit a car before coming to a stop.
“(I) turned around, walked over to the hit car, all of the debris everywhere and the air bags deployed – they were calling 911 through the speaker phone. Another car had been hit and was stalled at the walkway in front of Wheatsville,” Schragin wrote in a post for Austinist.
“Previously a group of girl scouts had been selling cookies in front of the store, and now two people were on the ground, injured. Car parts everywhere, as I walked on a grey SUV of some sort had slammed into the sign at Four Sons Quality Cleaners.”
KXAN is reporting that Woodman told a police officer that she thought she hit a pothole and that her brakes were not working.
Woodman had been treated and released from The Seton Medical Center the 2-hours before the wreck. The Seton Medical Center ssued this statement to KVUE:
While Seton is not permitted to speak about any patient’s case specifically, it is important to note that Seton has policies and processes in place to ensure that patients who receive care in our facilities have a safe mode of transportation from the hospital to their next destination, up to and including placing them in a taxi, making it clear that they are not to drive for a certain period of time, and/or alerting the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Ellen F. Decareau, Seton Communications Specialist.
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