Driver injured, son fine after accident just outside Fillmore

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

FILLMORE – A 29-year-old Greencastle woman was injured in a one-vehicle accident Friday night on Old Right of Way Road at the northwest edge of Fillmore.

Chelsea A. Steele, 211 S. County Road 100 East, was flown to St. Vincent Hospital, Indianapolis via Stat Flight Helicopter following the 7:35 p.m. accident.

Sgt. Kyle Gibbons of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department reported that Steele was eastbound on Old Right of Way Road, a half-mile west of Main Street, when she reportedly looked back at her son in a rear passenger seat.

When she looked back up, she realized the vehicle, a 2007 Chrysler 300M, had drifted off the left side of the roadway, striking two county roadway signs in the process.

Attempting to get back on the roadway, Steele advised she then overcorrected, and as a result traveled back across the road and left the north side of the roadway.

The vehicle went through a ditch, and unable to stop, went down a steep embankment before finally making impact with elevated CSX railroad tracks and flipping over onto its side.

The vehicle was located approximately 30 feet down the embankment, Sgt. Gibbons said.

Steele’s son was uninjured in the crash, and she instructed him to get out of the vehicle.

She remained trapped, however, due to a combination of intense pain in her shoulder, and her location in the rear passenger compartment. Having not worn her seatbelt, Steele was thrown from the driver’s seat, Gibbons noted.

Fillmore Fire Department volunteers had to remove the roof of the car to extricate Steele so she could be loaded into the helicopter for transport to Indianapolis.

Her son was released to her mother at the scene.

Total damage in the accident was estimated at $10,000-$25,000.

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