A classmate of my daughter's and nearby neighbor died in a caraccident this past very rainy Monday.
Yes, she was my daughter's age and went to the same school a mile down the road from our house.
Her viewing is tonight and she will be buried tomorrow.
She was driving back to the school in the afternoon when this happened.
It hits just too close to home. Read the story and you will see this sweet child's life will be forever frozen at the age of 18,
which she just turned, on February 23rd
Girl's traffic death stuns family
As soon as his daughter left home to pick up her boyfriend at Lenape High School
on Monday, Lee Ormerod got a feeling.
It was only a three-minute ride, but he texted her anyway: Are you OK?
Moments later, he heard sirens wailing. Then her boyfriend called.
Deanna Ormerod, an outgoing 18-year-old cheerleader,
never completed the short drive from Mount Laurel.
Police said Ormerod was killed when her black 1996 Honda Civic
and a black 2006 Honda Accord, driven by Edward Thorn,
65, collided about 3:45 p.m. in the southbound lane of Hartford Road in Medford,
roughly a quarter-mile from Lenape High.
Ormerod was traveling north and Thorn was traveling south on Hartford Road,
police said. There were no passengers.
Thorn, a Medford resident, was in critical condition yesterday
at Cooper University Hospital, according to the hospital.
Both drivers were wearing seat belts, and there is no evidence that
alcohol was involved, Medford Police Lt. Jeffrey Wagner said.
No charges have been filed, he said.
Ormerod, a senior at Lenape, was extricated from her vehicle and
went into cardiac arrest before she could be airlifted to a hospital,
her mother, Michelline Ormerod, said.
"She was an amazing girl, and she was going to be an amazing woman,"
her mother said. "It's mind-boggling. I can't even comprehend the loss."
Deanna Ormerod had musical bones, her family said. She played the piano as a child,
taught herself the guitar, and gravitated to the violin.
She was an extrovert, "a kid," her mother joked,
"who they couldn't get to shut up in class."
She volunteered with Trinity Episcopal Church in Moorestown,
cooking breakfast for the homeless in Camden, her mother said.
Deanna Ormerod got home from school around 2:30 p.m. Monday.
She emptied the cat litter, took out the trash, brought in the mail, and did the dishes.
She left to pick up Kyle Houseal, 17, a fellow Lenape student
whom she had been dating for more than a year. The teenagers planned
to go to Cherry Hill Mall. When she didn't answer her father's text
message or his phone calls, Lee Ormerod grew more worried.
"She was one of those kids who always told you where she was going to
be," her mother said. "If her plans changed, she'd let you know."
About 4:15 p.m., the family went looking for her.
The Ormerods pulled up at the intersection of Hartford and Church Roads
and found Hartford barricaded. There had been a crash up the road.
"We had heard that it was two black cars," her father said.
"We just wanted to make sure it wasn't her."
Does anyone have a tissue????
Every time my daughter gets in the car, I say a thousand prayers for her to have a safe trip to her destination and home. We ask, just like Deanna's father did, that she text us when she gets to her destination and again when she is leaving. We count the minutes we think it should take.
One minute minute more and we are out looking for her...just like Deanna's father did. Only this time he wasn't so lucky.
It scares me that this could be any one of our children once they get their driver's license. Driving is a privilege and responsibility greater than a teenager thinks. I remind my daughter of this all the time. You never know how it could change your life or the lives of others.
Trust me, I never want to find out.
Please, if you could, say a prayer for this poor family who is left to mourn
this terrible loss in their lives and to give them strength to
get through, especially the next few days and months. Please also pray for the gentleman who has been left severely injured, that he may have a speedy recovery and return to a normal life as he knew it.
Thanks
