Hit & Run ‘Shocks’ Disabled Woman

PRESCOTT - Authori­ties are on the lookout for an SUV involved in a two-vehicle hit and run accident in Prescott at around noon on Friday.

Prescott resident Ruth Clarke, 51, was driving her early '80s model, orange Ford Bronco to Sandy's Market on Highway 124 in downtown Prescott. She was about to make the turn onto C Street, the same route she always takes to access Sandy's parking lot, when a blonde woman, pos­sibly in her 30s and wearing glasses, made a left turn onto Highway 124 off C Street and smashed her bright yel­low Ford Excursion right into Clarke's front end. Clarke later reported to police that the other driv­er stopped for a moment, looked at her, and then sped away.

"I was so shocked," Clarke said in an interview with the Times on Tuesday morning. "For her to just pull away, I couldn't believe it. I was shook up so bad it made me want to throw up."

Clarke reacted impul­sively. Despite the adrenaline pumping through her veins, making her hands shake and her vision blurred, Clarke turned her battered Bronco around and followed the SUV down Highway 124.

"This black smoke was just pouring out the tail pipe of the other car," she said. "It looked to me like her whole front end had been smashed. But she just kept driving." The other vehicle, Clarke said, turned onto Highway 125 (or "Pen Road," as some in the area refer to the high­way that passes by the state penitentiary) going between 60 and 65 miles per hour. The speed limit on that roadway is between 50 and 55 miles per hour. Clarke tried to make out the license plate number, but she could only read part of it. "I followed for awhile, but then I stopped," Clarke said. "It just didn't seem safe to keep following her. It wasn't worth it." She also didn't know what her plan was if she ever caught up with the other ve­hicle, she said. But Clarke and Walla Walla County Sheriff's depu­ties would like to catch up with the driver eventually. "All hope is not lost," said Tom Cooper, patrol sergeant with the sheriff's department. "Sometimes we'll get a call from a neighbor who notices the damage to the car, or a body shop will notify us."

Cooper said the depart­ment's success rate at locat­ing vehicles involved in a hit and run depends on the case and the amount of evidence left at the scene, but overall about 40-50 percent of the time deputies are able to lo­cate the other vehicle.

In this case, the deputy followed up on Clarke's pos­sible license plate number but hit a dead end. Law en­forcement has no other leads at this time, Cooper said. Clarke said she just wants to see the other driver held accountable. Damage to her Bronco, which she still owes $100 on, was not enough to leave her without wheels to get around town. The left front end is dented, yellow paint is streaked along the side of the vehicle, and the front bumper is folded right in the middle. "But I just want to see the right thing done. She could have stopped and said some­thing to me or made sure I was okay, but she just drove off," said Clarke, who con­tinues to wonder what could have made the other driver leave the scene of the ac­cident. "Maybe she was late for work. Maybe it wasn't her car. But something made her run away." Clarke herself had to come clean after she phoned police following the accident. Driving with a suspended driver's license (she has dog licensing fines on her record from Pierce County, where she lived before moving to Prescott earlier this year) and no insurance, Clarke said her friends told her she was crazy to call the police at all.

"Well, that just wouldn't have been the right thing to do," she said. Clarke, who supports herself and her 16-year-old son with disability payments, was fined right after she reported the incident for driving with a suspended license and without proof of insurance.

Anyone with information regarding the accident or the other vehicle involved should contact the sheriff's depart­ment at 509-524-5400.