PERU — Police accused a local woman of drunken driving on Tuesday afternoon after the car she was driving careened off Route 108 and into Demerritt Cemetery, destroying several headstones.
Following the 3:15 p.m. accident, Oxford County Sheriff’s Deputy Willie Nelson charged Joann Durrell, 57, of 1049 Auburn Road (Route 108), with operating under the influence and criminal mischief.
Durrell, who was injured, was taken by Med-Care Ambulance to Rumford Hospital. A nursing supervisor declined comment due to privacy laws.
Nelson said that according to witnesses, Durrell drove her black 1999 Kia Sephia off Main Street into the four-way intersection with Route 108, and then, while halfway into the intersection, decided to turn right onto Route 108.
The car crossed the center line into the eastbound lane, traveled a short distance, and then veered into the cemetery, Nelson said.
“The medical crew said she smelled of alcohol, and given that she did a loop-de-loop in the middle of the road and went flying into the graveyard, I’d say she was OUI,” Nelson said.
The Kia struck and threw several headstones, and then slammed into the Woodsum monument, a 500- to 600-pound Canadian pink-granite memorial stone mounted atop a stone pedestal.
The large square Woodsum stone was thrown off its base and into the middle of a cemetery dirt lane while the base was moved off its foundation.
Also knocked off its pedestal was the heavy monument marker for Civil War veteran Carlos D. Lane and his family. That marker states that the Lane family plot was the first lot sold in Demerritt Cemetery.
Victor Richard, who with his wife lives opposite the cemetery at 12 Auburn Road, said he called 911 after he went outside to investigate the loud noise.
“She woke us right up,” Richard said of Durrell. “We were sitting in the house and all of a sudden, boom! My wife was at the TV and I was at the computer and I said, ‘What the heck was that?’”
“Two guys come running over (from across the street) to help her and I called 911,” he said.
Nelson said Durrell’s head was slammed into the windshield. Durrell was wearing a safety belt and both front airbags deployed.
He said Durrell, whose birthday was Tuesday, complained of pain and “was bleeding from the hands.”
While one Med-Care crew woman held Durrell’s head and neck as she stood near the car, a crewman placed a neck brace on her. Then a backboard was stood against her back and she was gently lowered to the ground, strapped in and placed atop a gurney that was rolled to the ambulance.
Nelson estimated damage to the Kia at $3,000 and at least $5,000 damage to the gravestones.
Some of the memorial stones Durrell struck had been previously replaced after a tractor-trailer truck slid off Route 108 in February 2010 and destroyed them. Richard said he alerted emergency responders to that accident as well.
A memorial stone maker at the scene stared in disbelief at the damage to the monuments, saying he had just replaced the Lane monument.
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- Emergency responders tend to Joann Durrell, 57, of 1049 Auburn Road (Route 108), on Tuesday afternoon after her car veered off Route 108 and destroyed several grave monuments in Demerritt Cemetery.
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- A Peru firefighter, left, talks with Joann Durrell, 57, of Peru, on Tuesday afternoon while a Med-Care Ambulance crew readies to place her onto a backboard after the car Durrell was driving careened off Route 108 and into Demerritt Cemetery in Peru.
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- A Peru firefighter, left, helps a Med-Care Ambulance crew lower accident victim Joann Durrell, 57, of Peru, on a backboard after the car she was driving crashed into and destroyed several headstones in Demerritt Cemetery off Route 108 in Peru.
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- The 500- to 600-pound Woodsum memorial stone, bottom right, was knocked off its pedestal and base and into a dirt lane on Tuesday afternoon after police say a 1999 Kia Sephia driven by Joann Durrell, 57, of Peru, careened off Route 108 and into Demerritt Cemetery, destroying several other gravestones as well. Durrell was later charged with operating under the influence and criminal mischief to the cemetery.
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