Posted on 03/09/2005 12:56:02 PM PST by billorites
COVENTRY, Vt. --A 21-year-old Newport woman was run over and killed when a practical joke turned tragic on U.S. Route 5, police said.
Ashley Lewis was pronounced dead at North Country Hospital in Newport early Sunday, said state police Sgt. Kevin Charboneau.
Keith Gingue, 21, of Johnson, was charged with drunken driving following the incident.
Charboneau said Lewis was driving on Route 5 with three friends at about 1 a.m. Sunday when she stopped at a large pull-off area about a mile south of Airport Road so the women could relieve themselves.
Police said Lewis and Aimee Hopkins, 21, of Lyndonville, got out of the vehicle and left Gingue and another man in the vehicle.
While the women were relieving themselves, Gingue got into the driver's seat and pulled the car ahead about 25 feet, running over Lewis, Charboneau said.
"He didn't know the girl was squatting in front of the vehicle," Charboneau said.
Lewis suffered massive internal injuries. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
In high school, the cops were breaking up a party. One of my girlfriends was peeing in the yard at the time & got arrested for public urination. We nick named her Squat.
I read stories like this and the first thing that comes to mind is "There but for the grace of God go I..."
I swear my guardian angel was working overtime throughout my teens and twenties, particularly when alcohol when involved.
I no longer drink and look back on those years very fortunate that I didn't wind up dead, crippled, maimed or party to a tragedy in someone else's life.
"Squat" LOL! That's funny.
Man, that's a bummer. It's a real sad story. She's dead and the jokester's life is ruined, over a pretty minor (outcome aside) dumb move.
You don't know Squat?
In college, a group of us were walking home, hammered, at three in the morning. As we were walking by the late night chicken wing place, some guy screeches his car to the curb and runs into the chicken place. My friend makes a motion towards the driver's side door and says, "Should I?"
Not being one to offer wise advice while drunk, I said "Do it!"
He jumped in the car and drove off.
About twenty minutes later, we met up back in our house. He said he drove it two blocks before the totally wasted girl in the passenger seat woke up, looked at him and said, "You're not the guy."
"Oh, I'm the guy." he told her, before beaching the car on somebody's lawn and running away.
For the record, I do not condone such law breaking and dangerous activities. It was a grand theft auto, kidnapping and drunk driving crime wave that lasted two blocks. He still walks the streets, a free man, almost twenty years later. And we'll never know if the drunk girl ever saw "the man" again.
Practical jokes are very dangerous.
A bunch of young medical students were learning how to operate on cadavers. Most of them were doing very well, but one young woman was more than a little freaked out over it. Her peers chided her and couldn't figure out her wanting to be a doctor when she could barely touch a dead body.
Later on that evening, some of the students decided to play a joke on the young woman. While she was away for the weekend, they went into the lab and removed a hand from one of the cadavers. Then they went into the young woman's room and tied the cut-off hand to the string which she would pull to turn on her light. Their "joke" was going to be watching/listening to her reaction when she reached for the string and found the dead hand instead.
For some reason, when she returned late at night, they never heard her come in. No screams, no shrieking and no running up and down the hallways, etc. After a few days went by and the young woman did not appear at her classes, a few brave students decided they better check to see if she had actually returned to the school.
As they entered the room - it looked like a cyclone had struck it - stuff was everywhere - and the dead hand was no longer hanging on the light's string. They just stood there for a moment trying to take it all in and figure out what had happened. Then, they began looking under the bed, under her desk .. nothing. Finally, one young student thought she heard noices in the closet and walked over and opened the door. She let out a scream and the others came running .. there .. on the top shelf of the closet was the young woman looking totally distraght - with her hair appearing to have been stirred by a mixer - and in her lap was the dead hand bone - now empty of flesh which she had chewed off. There was evidence on her clothing that she had really eaten it.
Needless to say .. practical jokes not only kill the body - they can kill the mind. This young woman never recovered. I am totally opposed to practical jokes because you do not know the state of mind of the person you're playing the joke on - and it could be deadly.
Whatever you say...
Whatever you say...
Gender difference played a part here too.
I also wonder why she chose that location for privacy. She was probably afraid of someone coming up from the behind seeing her. It's amazing and tragic to think of all these little choices she made which led to her death at 21 years old. I have peed on the road many times == and never thought to do so in front of my car--whether or not someone was in the car. Off to the side [possibly in the woods] is where you would go.
We are all so close to our last breath--when we least suspect it!
These stories may need their own thread....
I heard the same story growing up, except in the version I heard, her hair had turned white. I'd say it's an urban legend.
Me. And I'm fairly sure I'm not alone in the crowd.
Oh yeah, that's right .. I had forgotten that detail about the white hair.
I don't remember when or where I heard that story, but I never played a practical joke on anybody again - EVER.
Ain't it the truth. There was a high school kid killed a few years ago in a series of bizare coincidences.
Because of heavy snow, school was cancelled that day, and he was playing basketball at the local YMCA. He sat down along a wall to rest. At that time, a woman lost control of her car in the parking lot, crashing through the wall where he was resting, and killed him.
A few years ago, in broad daylight, a car heading towards us on a two lane road pulled over & stopped. A 20ish guy jumped out, ran to the FRONT of it, faced the traffic, pulled it out & started hosing down the road.
He was swaying as he was spraying, had a huge smile on his face, and used one his free hand to wave at us & the other cars as we went by.
To this day, if my wife or I need to go in some back & beyond area, we say, "better find spot; I have to wave at the traffic!"
Well, la-te-da...do your superior dance proudly.
Any YOUR problem is what.....???? And if you have children how do YOU teach them to stand up for something when you are so childish when someone says something you may not like...??? Testy....Testy.... Maybe you need a nice cup of hot cocoa, some chocolate stuffed croissants, a good book or movie... You know... something to calm you down!
It has been a really long time since I had one, though. Darn yinzer bakeries don't make them...
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