89-year-old woman hit by car

BY PAT FARNELLI

Charges are pending against a 52-year-old Montrose man for hitting an 89-year-old woman with his car last Tuesday (Mar. 15) as he was backing up at a gas station.

Randy O’Brien was backing out of the HOMart convenience store and failed to see Dorothy Hall, 89, of Montrose walking along Chestnut St. and hit her knocking her down.

Hall, a Release Time volunteer at Choconut Valley Elementary School, was walking to a training class when the accident happened.

The driver told her that he thought he had hit a cone marker, got out to look, and was shocked to see the elderly woman on her knees in the street.

Hall had been hit sideways and hit her head on the ground, and her glasses had come apart. “I yelled out, and then the next thing I knew, a policeman was there talking to me,” she said.

Her friend Betty Cain, who also volunteers for Child Evangelism Fellowship, told her, “It was some time until the policeman got there, Dorothy. You blacked out.”

Cain had been sitting in her car having her coffee when she saw her friend knocked down, at a few minutes before the 10 a.m. training class.

She waited with Hall until the ambulance arrived, and then went to the hospital until she was released, to give her a ride home.

Sue Winn, a Field Teacher for CEF, picked up Dorothy’s Bible, hat and coat, and notified Hall’s church, Bridgewater Baptist.

On Sunday, Pastor Bob Kadlecik recognized Dorothy during the service for having been hit by a car, and not even missing the next Sunday’s services.

“The scanner said that a little girl had been hit,” Kadlecik said.

Hall said that the driver came to see her in the hospital, and was crying as he apologized.

Monday morning, she showed up to count the collection there, said secretary Robin Gushee. “She is a remarkable woman.”

Hall, who grew up in Lakeside, just outside of New Milford, has been attending Bridgewater since she moved back to the area in 1994, after spending more than 40 years in Philadelphia. She lives at the Montrose Square Apartments right next door to the church, and rarely misses services or prayer meeting.

She volunteers weekly for Release Time classes, when public school students have the opportunity to attend a Bible lesson during the school day. “I don’t teach, I sit and talk with the kids,”  she said.

Winn described her coworker as a longtime helper with the program, who “loves children and is very faithful.”

Although she has a black eye and other facial bruising, Hall said, “The Lord protected me from being hurt worse.”

“I grew up on a farm, and was raised always walking to church every Sunday. That’s why I’m tough.”

Montrose Police Chief Dale Smith  asked her a few questions to see if she was oriented.

“He asked me my birth date, and I even told him what time I was born,” she said.

She acknowledged Monday afternoon that she was hoping to get her first night’s sleep in a bed, as she has had to sleep in a chair for the last week because of back pain.

“I’m thankful that even though I landed on my knees, they didn’t even get a mark,” she said.