LAMOILLE, Minn. — A woman driving out of the Pickwick road onto combined U.S. Highways 14-61 was killed in a pre-dawn crash. The victim: Lois Irene Davis, age 72, of Pickwick. This was about 4:40 a.m. She was on her way to Winona for a shift at a nursing home as an aide. Police have lots of unanswered questions about what happened, but this likely scenario has emerged:
> Davis was coming from County Road 7 from Pickwick. It was an intersection she knew well from living 30-some years up Big Trout Creek near Pickwick.
> Apparently she missed the stop sign at the Highway 14-16 intersection, or maybe had stopped but, because of rain, didn’t see oncoming traffic and proceeded cross..
> Her vehicle crossed all four lanes of 14-61 and went down a ditch along the elevated roadbed of the Canadian Pacific railroad tracks on the Mississippi river.
> Apparently dazed, Davis climbed out of her wrecked car and wandered up the 14-16 embankment.
> A vehicle bound downriver toward LaCrosse on 14-61 struck Davis. So did a second vehicle. One driver stopped, the other didn’t. Which impact was fatal wasn’t determined immediately. but there was no doubt that Davis died on the scene.
Police called for any witnesses to come forward. The second vehicle, police believed, was a semi-truck.
>
Fatal Lamoille intersection. On a drier day. Where Winona County Road 7 dead-ends. Most drivers cross lanes to turn north nine miles to Winona. The driver of one vehicle, a 2001 Chevrolet S10, was Chad Walter Erlandson, 44, of Winona. The second driver? Who knows. Drove off.