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MANTI -- A Manti woman crashed her Toyota Monday morning, and she says the cause was her sticking accelerator pedal.
The accident happened about 15 minutes before students started showing up for school, so luckily, no children were hurt. As for the driver, she's in the hospital with a broken vertebrae and bulging disks.
The crumpled chain-link fence in front of Manti Elementary School didn't stand a chance against a runaway Toyota.
"Before I could even attempt to turn, all of a sudden it's like someone pressed on the accelerator," says driver Cathy Whitaker.
The 55-year-old says her 2006 RAV4 wouldn't stop; so to slow down, she went onto the grass and hit the fence in front of the school.
"When I hit it, I really kind of lost control of the steering wheel and the speed, and from there I didn't know where I was going," she says.
"We're glad that there were no children walking here on the sidewalk, out on the playground, or heavy traffic when she came through," says Brenan Jackson, assistant superintendent of the South Sanpete School District.
Whitaker drove through about 100 feet of fencing and ended up in a neighbor's yard. Sanpete County investigators believe she was going about 40 miles per hour. They say she wasn't under the influence of anything, and, right now, they say it's completely possible that her gas pedal stuck -- like so many other recalled cars.
Related:
Toyota faces legal dilemma as well as record fine
Already flooded with hundreds of private lawsuits, Toyota now faces a dilemma stemming from safety problems on several popular models: whether to accept a record $16.4 million fine that could be cast as an admission of wrongdoing, or fight the government at the cost of more bad publicity."I've heard about it a lot on the news, but now it's starting to hit pretty close to home," says Sanpete County sheriff's Sgt. Greg Peterson.
The only thing is Whitaker's car was not recalled. Toyota listed certain 2009-2010 RAV4s as having sticking accelerator pedals; she drives a 2006 model.
Still, Whitaker insists that was it.
"I just know that it accelerates, and I hope Toyota understands what's happening. What's the mechanism that's triggering this?" she says.
Whitaker's car is now resting at a Manti auto shop, with some front-end damage. She's recovering from some serious back injuries at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, but she feels lucky.
"I was just praying the whole time out loud, just, ‘Dear God, Dear God!' You think this is it," Whitaker says.
Sanpete County says it's still investigating what happened. KSL News called several local Toyota dealers and only received comment from Karl Malone Toyota. A manager there said this is a ridiculous claim, especially since Whitaker's car wasn't even recalled.
E-mail: ngonzales@ksl.com
