A Ball State University mail clerk died Thursday morning after being thrown from and run over by the truck she was driving.
Annie L. Harvey, 52, 1401 N. Wolfe St., was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near Tillotson Avenue.
Muncie Deputy Police Chief Jim Peters said accident reconstruction investigators believe Harvey was distracted and hit the concrete median as she was driving in the northbound lane. The police have not determined what distracted Harvey.
The door to the truck was open, and Harvey was not wearing a seat belt, allowing her to be partially thrown from the vehicle, Peters said. Harvey grabbed the steering wheel to pull herself back in.
"The impact of the wheels on the median jolted her from her seat," Peters said. "In all probability, she used the wheel to hang on, which pulled her back into the median for the second time."
Peters said the second impact into the median ejected Harvey from the vehicle. The truck then ran over Harvey, crossed the median and came to a rest 70 feet later in the oncoming lane.
Witnesses have verified what the accident reconstruction team has concluded, Peters said.
Harvey was on her way to the university from a south side post office.
An autopsy was done that revealed no medical concerns which might have initiated the accident, Peters said.
He said investigators are performing toxicology tests, which could take three to five weeks to complete.
"I don't really expect anything to show up in the toxicology report though," Peters said.
Harvey had been a Ball State employee since 1977, when she assumed a temporary custodial job. She was hired on as a full-time custodian later that year, and she made the transition to mail clerk in 1997.
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