A 25-year-old pregnant woman was critically injured Saturday morning after she flipped a stolen minivan in a Lowndes County road-side ditch.
Shantel Staward, of 129 Kaye Drive, was southbound in a tan Isuzu Rodeo in the 2300 block of Nashville Ferry Road East at about 10:30 a.m. when she went off the road.
The minivan rolled one or two times before hitting a culvert, which flipped it right-side up more than 50 feet away, said 50-year-old Darwin Turk, who witnessed the wreck from his front porch.
She was unconscious and slumped in the passenger seat without a seat belt when he arrived, said Turk, who was first on the scene.
She was extracted from the totaled van by Lowndes County volunteer firefighters, sheriff”s deputies and Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle paramedics.
Staward was airlifted in critical condition to the University of Mississippi Medical Center at Jackson with severe cuts and scrapes, among other injuries.
Four or five months pregnant, Staward was temporarily staying with friend Katrina Wilson, said Wilson, who was called to the scene.
But Staward spent Friday night at 316 Florence St. with another friend, Gay Deloach.
Deloach, also called to the scene, said she woke Saturday morning to find Staward gone and her minivan missing.
Wilson and Deloach were unsure of Staward”s destination, but said she had been dealing with personal issues.
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