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Fort Scott High School student dies Tuesday in traffic accident
A 16-year-old Uniontown teenager was killed Tuesday on her way to school on Maple Road after the vehicle entered a ditch and struck a tree on the side of the road, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol.
The official report said around 6:44 a.m., Cherie C. Edmiston (known as Cherie C. Schubert) was driving east on Maple Road about a mile and a half east of Uniontown, when she lost control of the vehicle and entered the north side ditch. The side of the vehicle then slammed into a nearby tree, the force of the impact wrapping the car around it. Authorities pronounced Edmiston dead at the scene. Her body was transported to University of Kansas Hospital in Lawrence for an autopsy, a standard procedure when fatal auto accidents occur.
The impact severed the front end of the green 1998 Chevrolet Impala from the rest of the vehicle, KHP Trooper Jeff Scott said. The crash did not eject Edmiston from the vehicle, even though she was not wearing a seat belt, Scott said.
Speed was a factor in the wreck, Scott said, but authorities are still investigating exactly how fast the teenager was driving prior to wreck. The trooper said he didn't think a wet pavement caused by rain that morning contributed to Edmiston losing control of the car. It's not known why she lost control.
"I'd say this was a severe crash," Scott said.
Missouri Highway Patrol contacted Edmiston's mother, who was in Kansas City, Mo. A family notified her stepfather, the KHP report said.
Amy Herring, Cherie's niece, said the wreck "was a terrible tragedy, and we're all going to miss her very much."
Edmiston was apparently on her way to Fort Scott High School, Scott said, where she was a student.
Counselors and school psychologists talked with students Tuesday about Edmiston's death. They will continue to provide counseling to high school students, a USD 234 official said.
Tuesday' s accident marks the third traffic mishap that has claimed the life of a Uniontown resident within the last 90 days.
* On Sept. 7, Mary R. Pritchett, 64, Uniontown, died when she over-corrected her blue 1998 Ford Explorer on U.S. Highway 54 east of Bronson, overturning the sport utility vehicle multiple times. She died at the scene, authorities said.
* Exactly two months earlier, on July 7, Uniontown resident Virginia Dare, 79, died from injuries suffered when her car collided with a truck hauling cattle at the intersection of Kansas Highway 3 and Maple Road. Dare was taken to an area hospital, where she later died.