A car crash resulting from a teen's driving stunt was the primary cause of death for 101-year-old Mildred Ellefson at a Garretson, South Dakota nursing home, but the victim's age also was a factor, an autopsy showed.
"It's a very difficult call to make," Dr. Brad Randall, Minnehaha County coroner, said Monday. "Would she have died had she not been involved in the crash? It's my opinion that she died prematurely because of the crash."
The autopsy could help decide charges that Clarissa Jean Kutil, 18, of Garretson will face as driver of the 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass that smashed through the nursing home wall and into Ellefson's room.
Randall's report brings sad irony as Ellefson's family sorts out her death. She had survived a train crash as a child and grew up to be a rural schoolteacher, beekeeper, church organist and one of the few hundred South Dakotans to reach age 100.
"She was in a train wreck when she was 9 years old when a train hit the family car ... and at 101 she dies in another accident," said her nephew, LeRoy Ellefson, of Jasper, Minn.
Ellefson was taken to Sanford Hospital after the June 20 accident, then released and returned to the nursing home, where she died June 22.
"That was a horrible accident. That's exactly what it was. There's nothing else we need to say," said Charlie Ward, a managing partner in Ward Enterprises, which oversees Palisade Manor.
His report said a "car crashed through the wall and pinned her between her bed and the wall." It lists "complications of blunt head and leg trauma" and "motor vehicle crash" as part one of cause of death. It lists "severe coronary artery disease" and "generalized senescence," or aging, as part two.
Kutil and two male friends were waiting outside the nursing home for another friend to get off work the night of June 20, the sheriff's office said.
The two men were sitting on the trunk of the car, when Kutil tried to startle them by revving the engine. She accidentally put the car into reverse instead of neutral and hit the accelerator instead of the brake. The car broke through a brick wall into Ellefson's room. One man suffered a minor injury.
"My guess is that as soon as the car moved they were jumping off and that's how one of them was hurt," sheriff's Capt. Paul Niedringhaus said.
Officers cited Kutil with careless driving and driving without a license, said Jim Iosty, deputy state's attorney. He said that office will review Randall's report before deciding on other possible charges. Ellefson's age will be part of that discussion.
"Certainly, it is one of the facts of the case to be considered," Iosty said.
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