I know everyone complains about their local paper. There’s always that one bad editor or writer, and typos and mangled sentences muddying the newsprint.
I just had to mention a brief I saw on the Daily Press’s website this morning. The story isn’t funny, but the writing of it made me shake my head.
“A police pursuit ended in Hampton early this morning when the driver lost control, overturned and caught fire.”
The driver overturned and caught fire?
“Terol Lane, a 23-year-old Williamsburg resident, sustained life-threatening injuries in a crash that began when police clocked her driving 92 mph around 5 a.m.”
The crash began.. no, the chase began. The crash came at the end.
And just to top the brief off,
“There was no wordo on her current condition.”
Just to compare, here is the same incident as covered by the Virginian-Pilot:
A 25-year-old woman being pursued by police this morning on Interstate 64 lost control of her car, which crashed into a culvert, flipped over and caught fire, trapping her inside.
The woman, from Williamsburg, was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries after being freed from the wreckage, said Sgt. Michelle Cotten, state police spokeswoman.
The pursuit began about 5 a.m. on I-64 at Mercury Boulevard when a trooper clocked the woman going 92 mph on I-64 and tried to pull her car over, Cotten said.
The woman refused to pull over and headed toward I-664, Cotten said. The woman pulled off the interstate at Powhatan Parkway, then went to Pembroke Avenue, where she lost control.
The car blew a tire, hit the drainage culvert head-on, then flipped end over end before catching fire, Cotten said.
The woman was taken to a hospital, and charges are pending, Cotten said.
The crash is under investigation.