CALCUTTA - An East Liverpool woman escaped almost certain injury after her vehicle slid on an icy patch on Old Fredericktown Road Tuesday morning, overturning but stopping before going over a cliff.
According to St. Clair Township police, Mary Cook, 66, Ingles Avenue, was northbound, traveling around a bend when her vehicle struck an icy patch just as the weather took a turn for the worse Tuesday morning.
The vehicle went off the road, spinning around and striking a tree before rolling over an embankment where a plastic culvert pipe was sticking from the ground.
Officers said it appeared the culvert pipe broke out the rear window of Cook's vehicle as it rolled over and ended back on its tires, just short of a rock outcropping at the top of a 150-foot-high cliff.
When officers arrived, they found the vehicle with its driver's side door open and keys in the ignition but no one around, and they initially thought the driver may have been ejected over the cliff.
"We couldn't find her. I thought for sure she was ejected," Stovall related.
Calcutta Fire Department was called to help search the area but was canceled prior to reaching the scene when Cook notified the police department that she was at her home.
A neighbor saw Cook at the scene and picked her up, taking her home, where she reportedly called her insurance company before calling police, according to Stovall.
Cook was not injured in the accident, nor was she cited.
