Authorities in Minnesota suspect that distracted driving played a role in a car going airborne, landing on another vehicle and fatally striking a motorist sitting at a stop sign in Washington County.
Megan Goeltz, 22 years old, was killed. Goeltz was raising her 3-year-old daughter on her own and working at a nursing home in Hudson, said her father, Thomas Goeltz.
A Saab driven by 20-year-old Drew T. Fleming of Hudson, Wis., was heading north on Hwy. 95 Monday evening, when it crossed the southbound lanes and went into the ditch, the patrol said.
From the ditch, Fleming's car hit an embankment and went airborne into a Goeltz' Ford Fusion sitting at the three-way intersection on eastbound 22nd Street North, about halfway between Lakeland and Bayport.
Thomas Goeltz said his daughter's death "really hits home for me. I'm a safety consultant. I train people on distracted driving."
He has spent Tuesday "calling relatives and crying," he said.
While declining to be specific at this preliminary stage of the investigation, State Patrol Col. Matt Langer said it appears that Fleming was "distracted by several items in the vehicle at the time of the crash." Langer pleaded with motorists to do better.
"Decisions drivers make every day either mean lives are being saved or lives are being lost," Langer said. "You should not be texting a friend, searching for phone numbers, looking for a favorite song or messing around in the vehicle."
