SALISBURY — Authorities said a 21-year-old Mt. Ulla woman appeared to be texting and driving shortly before her car flipped down an embankment Thursday night.
Emergency crews worked for more than an hour to cut the door from a Honda Civic, freeing Kara Skinner, who was driving when the vehicle plummeted from the 7800-block of Sherrill’s Ford Road into an open pasture about 6:15 p.m., crews said.
Skinner, of Back Creek Church Road, was taken to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center with a head injury and a gash to her forearm, N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper D.T. Sloop said. She was the only passenger in the car.
Sloop said Skinner was coming from Salisbury and was on her way home when the crash happened.
Sloop said authorities recovered the woman’s cell phone, which recorded a last text message at 6:11 p.m. The crash was called into authorities at 6:13 p.m.
“Right now, it looks like she was texting while driving,” Sloop said.
Crews said the vehicle appeared to nosedive into the ground after leaving the pavement and soaring off the steep embankment.
Debris trailed the upside-down vehicle from the roadside as crews worked to free the woman. Along with emergency workers, some neighbors and the woman’s relatives were at the scene.
Skinner was removed from the vehicle about 7:15 p.m. and taken by ambulance to Baptist. A phone call to the hospital was not immediately returned.