Woman Left Unattended After Car Wreck Dies From Injuries

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – A 23-year-old woman who was presumed dead and left untreated for two hours in the wreckage of a car crash died the next day from her injuries, officials said.

Erica N. Smith died Monday afternoon at Brooke Army Medical Center after suffering a head injury in the Sunday morning crash.

Paramedics covered Smith in a yellow tarp in the wreckage, the typical procedure when someone is killed, before an investigator for the medical examiner’s office arrived at the scene and made the startling discovery that she was still alive, officials said.

“It is unfathomable to me that my little cousin sat, bleeding, under a tarp and in the cold while receiving no medical attention,” Kimberly McGuire, a cousin of Smith’s, said in an e-mail to the San Antonio Express-News. “I can’t help but wonder if her injuries would be less severe had she received the prompt medical treatment she deserved.”

Fire Chief Charles Hood said the department is reviewing the incident, but he didn’t expect the paramedics to be disciplined. He would not specify how the paramedics checked Smith’s condition but said they generally check for vital signs.

“The paramedics, when they were doing their job, they didn’t think they were missing anything,” Hood said.

Smith, a senior at Texas State University, was the front passenger in a Honda Accord with two other people, when the Accord was struck by a vehicle that crossed the Loop 410 median and slammed into the Accord head-on, police said.

While Smith was left unattended, paramedics took the other two people in the car to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

The driver of the other vehicle, Jenny Ann Ybarra, 28, was charged with intoxication assault, said police spokesman Joe Rios. She was released from Bexar County Jail after posting $5,000 bond on Sunday.

Hood said he spent time at the hospital visiting with Smith’s family on Monday.

“It was difficult, man. I was in tears,” Hood said. “You can’t describe the amount of grief in there.”