PRINCETON, W.Va. — A Princeton family is mourning the loss of a woman who died after being struck by a pickup truck in a Walmart parking lot last month.
Coleen Farley, 62, was flown to Charleston Area Medical Center after the incident on July 23 and died at the hospital four days later.
“It’s just a shock. I never dreamed something like this would ever happen to her,” said her husband Eddie Farley.
The Mercer County Sheriff’s Office said a 88 year old driver in a 2014 Chevrolet Silverado claimed he did not see Farley due to the height of his truck.
Early that morning, Farley spoke to his wife for the final time and didn’t know it.
“She called me and we talked for about 10-15 minutes. We told each other we loved each other. Next time I saw her, she was in the hospital on a ventilator,” he said.
Farley was well-known in the Princeton community where she worked at Service Dry Cleaners for 46 years.
“Princeton is a small town, but everybody knew her. They loved her. Every person she ran into, she had an impact on their life,” her husband said.
She also had a passion for clothes and jewelry.
“She loved dry cleaning and clothes. The sparklier her clothes, the better she liked it,” Farley said.
He and his wife would’ve been married 40 years this September. They have two children.
“There’s just no words to describe the kind of woman she was,” he said. “She never saw the bad in no body. She would give you the shirt off her back.”
Farley was an organ donor and insisted she be kept on a ventilator for as long as possible.
“They took a kidney to one recipient, a kidney to another recipient and her liver to somebody else, so she’s already saved three people’s lives,” said her husband.
This comes as West Virginia marks its first ever Donor Day on Sunday.
Support for the family has flooded a Facebook donation page created by daughter Tera Farley and her cousin Ashley Asbury.
“She always wanted to help,” said Tera Farley through a Facebook video update on her mother’s condition. “She always wanted to give the gift of life when she didn’t have anymore life left to live.”
The family is asking for help to pay for medical bills and funeral costs. Funeral arraignments are currently being made, but a service date has not been announced.
There will be a bake sale at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Mufflerman Tire & Auto in Princeton.
In addition to donations, the family is asking for prayers.
“I pray that God gives my dad and my brother strength,” Tera Farley said in her video. “Everybody loved mom.”