A young gym manager died in a head-on crash after her car was believed to stray onto the wrong side of the road while she ate fast food. Anna Ledgar, 28, was driving her Seat Leon along B5030 Ashbourne Road, between Uttoxeter and Rocester, shortly before 1pm on October 18.
Moments before the incident, she had pulled out of a KFC drive-thru with a food order. An inquest heard that her car either drifted or swerved over the central white line and into the path of an oncoming Peugeot taxi.
PC Sarah Mulvey, a forensic collision investigator, said there was no evidence of any braking before the impact or any obstruction on the road - however, food was found on the Seat's deployed airbag. Acting South Staffordshire senior coroner Andrew Barkley said it ‘suggested very strongly’ that Anna was eating at the time of the crash.
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The taxi driver, who was seriously injured, recalled hearing a "massive bang". Shortly after, the next thing he remembered was noticing he was bleeding heavily and suffering pain, StokeonTrent Live reports.
“The collision happened on my side of the road and I had no chance at all to take evasive action,” he said in a statement. Other motorists nearby quickly came to the aid of both drivers and called 999 - Anna was unresponsive in the driver's seat.
She was rushed to Royal Stoke University Hospital, where she tragically died the following day from an "unsurvivable" traumatic brain injury, the inquest heard. Anna was on the organ donor register and her final act was to donate her organs to save the lives of six other people.
Anna's partner, Greg, who lived with Anna in Abbots Bromley, had been intending to propose to her. As she lay in her hospital bed, he arranged for a vicar to give a blessing and placed a ring on her finger.
On the day before the incident, the couple had enjoyed a "perfect Sunday" - Anna had only recently been headhunted by Macclesfield FC to become the club's gym manager and was due to start working a late shift on the day of the incident.
Greg got up first at 6.30am and left for work, kissing goodbye to Anna as she remained in bed. “She walked the dogs before going to work,” he said. At 2.30pm, he got a call to say she’d been involved in an accident and was in hospital.
Greg said he had ‘never known’ Anna to eat or drink while driving. He was also surprised to hear she had stopped at KFC since she had eaten later that day.
One motorist had also stopped at the drive-thru to order food at 12.37pm and recalled seeing a woman in front of her collect a box at the window - the same woman was then seen travelling several cars behind Anna on the B5030, the inquest heard.
The driver's attention was drawn to the Seat when it "went into the opposing lane". Another driver coming from the opposite direction had to swerve onto the grass in order to avoid the accident.
In a statement, the witness said: “I was in total shock at the time. If I hadn’t taken the action I did, the car would have hit me. She made no attempt to get out of the way.”
Mr Barkley concluded that the death was due to a road traffic collision. Paying tribute to Anna's tragic death, Greg said: "Anna was just an amazing person. All she ever wanted was the best for people. She wanted to help people achieve their goals - in the gym or just in life.”
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