MILTON, W.Va. — Police say a secondary crash killed a Nitro woman minutes after her car struck a deer on Interstate 64 in Cabell County Monday night.
Milton Police Chief Chuck Zerkle said Katrina Godbey, 20, and her fiance, Joshua McComas, 27, both of Nitro, were traveling eastbound near the Milton exit and struck a deer around 9:45 p.m. The impact disabled their vehicle in the slow lane and the impact of the airbags left Godbey dazed.
McComas helped Godbey out of the vehicle and to the median, police said. As she sat on the roadside and recovered, her fiance returned to the vehicle to switch on the hazard lights.
“Another vehicle traveling east struck the vehicle in the rear,” said Zerkle. “At that point Josh was either in the vehicle or getting out of the vehicle.”
The second vehicle was driven by Christine Grimes, 37, of Poca. Police said the impact claimed Godbey’s life and injured McComas and Grimes.
“When we arrived at the scene, he was lying in the road way. Ms. Grimes was trapped in her vehicle,” said Zerkle. “At some point, one of these vehicles struck Ms. Godbey and she died in route to the hospital.”
Grimes and McComas remain in stable condition at Cabell Huntington Hospital.
“It’s just one of those things you want to second guess everything,” said Zerkle. “You think you could have done something different, but I’m sure at the time it seemed like the safest thing to do to get out of the vehicle and get away from it because it was still in the roadway.”