SPRING VALLEY, Minn. – A motorist suspected of hitting an Amish buggy carrying nine people says she thought she hit a deer. No one died in the Friday night crash, although two children in the horse-drawn buggy were hurt. The motorist didn’t stop. Unaware of the accident, a Preston County sheriff’s deputy happened to stop a vehicle with front-end damage a few minutes later. The driver said she had hit a deer. She was allowed to continue home. Shortly thereafter the deputy learned of the buggy wreck and realized that the woman in in the vehicle he had stopped may have been the hit-and-run driver. Her vehicle was white. Pieces of white wreckage were at the scene. The driver was traced through database automobile records to a Spring Valley address. There the woman again denied running into the buggy. Her car, however, had substantial front-end damage with a passenger side headlight out, deputies said. And it was a white vehicle. The vehicle was impounded for further examination. Pending more evidence, the cunty prosecutor, Brett Corson, has delayed a decision on criminal charges.
