DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Fla. (WSVN) — A toll attendant was killed after a truck driver crashed into her toll booth, and now the driver may be facing charges.
Volusia County Sheriff’s Office deputies said the incident occurred Monday in the Daytona Beach Shores area.
The victim, 62-year-old Tammie Jo Baker, had just started her shift at the booth when the female truck driver crashed into it, according to investigators.
“That booth isn’t made of anything, if you look at it, and you hit that thing at 40 miles an hour, there’s really nowhere to go, and it flipped the booth around,” Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said. “The force of that, that’s not the way the booth was originally, she was originally hit head-on. The way the booth was originally set up, the impact spun the booth around.”
But the crash didn’t stop the speeding driver. Investigators said the driver, identified as 35-year-old Deanna Harrell, kept going.
“Something is innocuous. It’s coming here to take tolls, and you’re dead. For what? Really, for what? You know, it’s just senseless, and it’s just disturbing,” said Chitwood.
Surveillance video shows a group of people on the sand running to safety after the driver plows through the toll booth and heads toward them.
Detectives believe Harrell was under the influence when she sped through the intersection, slammed into the toll booth and ended up nearly inside the ocean.
Her truck eventually got stuck in the sand, prompting a group of good Samaritans to pull Harrell out of the truck until responding deputies arrived.
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