Jewell Prince carried her family’s tradition of delivering the mail, and eventually the newspaper, until her accidental death Sunday.
The Sherwood, Tenn., resident and Chattanooga Times Free Press carrier for more than a decade died Sunday evening in Chattanooga’s Erlanger hospital from injuries suffered when her Chevrolet Blazer backed over her, according to Franklin County Sheriff Tim Fuller.
She died as a result of hemorrhaging of the aorta, the main artery in the body, he said.
County Emergency Medical Services personnel first responded to a call at 9 a.m., Fuller said.
“Evidently, her leg was outside the door of her car when it started backing up,” he said.
But family members said they heard a different version.
She had left to pick up her newspapers for delivery and came back to her house, said Joann Stubblefield, whose husband Russell is Prince’s first cousin.
Prince’s house is on a hill, Stubblefield said, and the car’s “engine was off but she had left it in drive.”
“It got moving and she tried to stop it and it ran over her.”
But no one really knows precisely what happened because Prince was alone, said Stubblefield.
A niece who lives with Prince said “(the victim) was talking, she was more worried about the vehicle, but that didn’t last very long,” Stubblefield said.
Prince was airlifted to Erlanger and pronounced dead about 6 p.m., according to Fuller.
Prince, who had turned 80 in July, was described as a good person by her friends and relatives.
“She was knowledgeable of everyone, everyone liked her,” Fuller said. “It is a great loss for the town. As one of the family members described it to me, she was the rock of the family and I could relate to that. She had that type of personality.”
Sherwood is a town of a couple of hundred people west of Chattanooga.
“Her daddy started the mail route, he rode a horse across the mountain and delivered mail,” said Stubblefield. “It’s always been in her family; she started helping there after her husband died.”
If it hadn’t been for her accident, she said, “she would be at it, that’s where she was the happiest.”
The family will receive friends today from 2 to 9 p.m. and the funeral will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Moore-Cortner Funeral Home in Winchester, Tenn.