Two Crashes at Polling Place on Election Day

On Election Day, Assistant Chief Wes Ellison responded to a report of a car crash at the polling place at the YMCA on W. Main Street at 12:13 p.m. According to the crash report, Charity Ariola, 38, of Plato, Mo., was pulling into the YMCA parking lot when she noticed her seatbelt was caught in the driver’s door. While still driving, she opened the door to free the seatbelt. She fell out of the moving car which continued on its path in the absence of the driver and hit a GMC Sierra parked in the lot. The owner of the truck was still in his vehicle at the time of the crash, but was not injured. Ariola was also uninjured. She refused medical treatment at the scene. 

 

While still on the scene, Asst. Chief Ellison was made aware of a second crash that occurred in the same parking lot. Don Burgess, the passenger in Ariola’s vehicle, undertook to move a vehicle that belonged to a bystander and was partially blocked by the first crash. According to the crash report, Burgess’s prosthetic leg caught between the accelerator and brake which caused him to accelerate the bystander’s vehicle to smash into a parked van, an overhang on the front of the building, and a sidewalk planter. 

 

No injuries were reported as a result of the second collision, and both vehicles were driven from the scene by their owners.