A motorist driving the wrong way on a divided highway narrowly avoided collisions with at least six other vehicles before the head-on crash that killed six people, including her three children, police said Monday.
Judy Kirby, 31, also had passed four possible turnoffs from the southbound lanes of Indiana 67 northwest of Martinsville, police said.
Kirby, one of only two survivors of the crash, was in serious condition Monday at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.
Investigators still could not explain Monday why Kirby had driven 1.7 miles in the wrong direction before the fatal collision with a mini-van about 5 p.m. Saturday. The driver of the mini-van and two of his children died.
“That’s one of the hurdles we’re trying to piece together,” an investigator said.
Initial reports listed Kirby as a Martinsville resident, but police said the woman might have been from Marion County, northeast of Morgan County, and unfamiliar with the highway.
Police said several motorists reported seeing Kirby’s white Pontiac Sunbird coming at them, forcing them to swerve off the road.
“From what we can determine now, she passed four access roads and could have used the median to get off the highway,” police said. “Why she didn’t is one of the unanswered questions of the moment.”
