I recently mentioned Natasha Pettigrew, the Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate here in Maryland. In fact, I was planning on voting for her. (No worries about "throwing away your vote" on a third party candidate here; for good or for ill, Democrat Barbra Mikulski has the race all but sewn up.)
According to the Washington Post, Natasha Pettigrew was struck by a car early Sunday morning while she was biking, training for a triathlon. She died Monday night.
Shockingly, the driver of the SUV that killed Pettigrew didn't realize it for perhaps as long as an hour:
State police said the driver apparently thought she had hit a deer or another animal and realized what had happened only when she arrived home and found Pettigrew's bicycle trapped under her car. Pettigrew was not dragged by the vehicle but suffered severe injuries, police said.
The driver, who police identified as Christy R. Littleford, 41, called Prince George's County police sometime before 6:30 a.m. on Sunday to report the crash. County police then relayed the information to state police, who were on the scene.
"She had driven to her home and called from her home," said Greg Shipley, a Maryland State Police spokesman. "The initial indication was that she thought she may have hit a deer or an animal in the roadway. . . . When she arrived home and saw the bicycle, she assumed it was something else."
That, folks, is how careless drivers can be.
Brian Bittner, Maryland Green Party co-chairman, expressed the loss felt by those who worked with her in the party, saying that Pettigrew had "incredible potential as a future leader for this party and this state...We all looked forward to working with Natasha for years to come."