photo by Willard K. Rice
Collegedale Police said a driver who dropped a cell phone and was trying to pick it up while driving on Ooltewah-Ringgold Road wound up colliding head on recently with a semi pulling an empty 30-foot trailer.
Somehow driver Sarah Jane Young, 32, of Ooltewah, was not injured.
However, the truck driver, Timothy Martin of Homer, Ga., had to be taken to Erlanger Hospital by ambulance.
Police said the semi was going north near the 4000 block of the narrow road and Ms. Young was going south when her phone fell to the passenger floor board.
Police stated, "She was attempting to retrieve it causing her to cross the center line into the other lane of travel before the impact."
Police said, due to the impact, both vehicles crossed into the southbound lane before running off the roadside and into a deep ditch. The Young vehicle landed on its passenger side. The semi came to rest on top of the driver's side of the Young car.