By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
A Sherwood woman was struck and killed by a van Tuesday evening after supposedly following State Police orders.
Vanda Johnson, 62, of 3 Post Oak Loop, was crossing the southbound lanes of Hwy. 67/167 near the I-440 exit when she was struck and killed by a van driven by Phillop Lee, 21, of 305 Stonewall Drive in Jacksonville.
According to family members, who have filed a complaint with the State Police, the department is reviewing the circumstances.
According to Bill Sadler, spokesman for the State Police, the review could take a week or so. “There is no clock. We want to be accurate and fair and respond to the family first,” he explained.
Johnson was killed as she tried to cross the southbound lanes of the highway, supposedly under orders from the state trooper who had arrived on scene to investigate a six-car bumper-tag accident that her grandchildren were involved in.
According to the accident report, the weather was clear at the time of the accident and conditions were dry.
Johnson’s grandson and his wife, Brandon and Megan Vocque were part of the six-car chain-reaction accident in the northbound lanes of Hwy. 67/167.
Shortly after the 6 p.m. accident, Johnson, by chance, called the Vocques. Megan Vocque was crying and said they had been in an accident.
Johnson, according to the grandson, said she was on her way.
Rather than drive up and around to the northbound accident cited, Johnson apparently pulled off on the southbound shoulder across from the accident and made her way across the southbound lanes of traffic.
The accident had most of the northbound lanes stopped or slowed down.
Once Johnson made sure her family members were all right, Brandon Vocque started to escort her back across the lanes to her car.
Apparently when they got to the median, a state trooper told Vocque that he had to get back to his vehicle and move it down the road and that Johnson needed to go on her own.
Vocque followed the trooper’s orders and returned to his vehicle and moved it farther up the road as told.
The last he saw of his grandmother was her climbing over the median barrier.
The Vocques didn’t hear the van hitting their grandmother or any screams as they had followed the trooper’s orders, and along with others in the six-car accident, had driven to the shoulder north toward the Redmond Road exit.
But a volunteer firefighter and family friend was at the scene and approached the Vocques and told them something may have happened to their grandmother.
It took another 30 minutes before the state trooper would let the Vocques go back to the scene of the accident.
When Vocque later asked the trooper why he wasn’t allowed to walk Johnson across to begin with, the trooper supposedly said it was protocol.
The Jacksonville Fire Depart-ment responded to the initial six-car accident and made sure there were no major injuries.
Battalion Chief Joe Bratton said the department was at the initial call, returned and then was called out again when Johnson was hit, but turned the scene over to the county coroner.
Johnson was one of two pedestrians killed Tuesday night trying to cross a controlled-access highway.
The second incident occurred about 11 p.m. in the westbound lane of I-30 near I-630. Herbert Douglas of North Little Rock was walking across I-30 when he was struck and killed by a vehicle driven by a Little Rock man.
