RUTLAND, Vt. -
The hunt is on for a driver involved in a deadly hit-and-run Tuesday night. Police say a woman pushing her husband in his wheelchair was killed. The husband is hospitalized.
Witnesses at the scene, like Amber Stomper were shocked. "There was just so much blood, I mean they knocked her out of her shoes," she explained.
Stomper said the horrifying hit-and-run happened right in front of her house.
"I had come out because I heard the impact. We thought, you know, somebody hit our car. That's how it sounded," Stomper said.
Police say Deborah Campbell was pushing her husband Robert in a wheelchair traveling northbound on Lincoln Ave when they were struck from behind by a car.
"I come out and there's a woman on the ground she had a lot of blunt trauma on the head, bleeding," Stomper said.
Stomper says by the time she got outside the driver had already fled. She used her training as an LNA to help the injured woman until emergency responders arrived.
"I checked her pulse, she was still breathing. But when they got here she stopped. I just did whatever I could really," Stomper explained.
Police say Deborah Campbell's body bore the brunt of the impact and she died shortly after they arrived on the scene. Her husband, Robert, suffered minor injuries.
"It was her body that actually impacted the wheelchair and displaced her husband from the wheelchair and sent the wheelchair forward. That's what we're also having a really tough time with because we have a lack of any significant forensic evidence at this point," explained Sgt. John Sly of the Rutland City Police.
Spokes from the wheelchair littered the sidewalk, but police found little other debris on Lincoln Ave. Other than a red mark on the damaged wheelchair, police say they have little evidence of what the suspect's car might look like.
"We will now be in the process of reviewing Mrs. Campbell's clothing for any trace evidence of the vehicle that struck her, which, again, is certainly a very good possibility that there will be something there that will point us in the correct direction," Sly said.
Police are hoping that impact results from the medical examiner will help them determine the make and size of the car.
Rutland Police want to hear from anyone who spots a red or rust-colored car with unusual front-end damage.
