Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Truck runs into home; driver leaves then dies

On July 30, 2002 at 2:37 p.m. the Gurdon Police Department received a call that a truck had hit a house trailer at 318 Dean Street.

Gurdon City Marshal Don Childers and officer Ricky Clark responded to the call.

Upon their arrival they saw a 1984 Ford Ranger had hit the corner of the trailer. The truck was still against the trailer and had run over a gas meter, which was leaking gas.

The trailer belonged to Jennifer Hawthorne.

Hawthorne said a girl got out of the truck and started running up the road. Hawthorne knew the girl to be Shantelle Ollison.

The truck Ollison was driving belonged to Julius Marks.

Palmer's Wrecker Service was called to the scene to remove the truck from the site. The Gurdon Fire Department along with representatives from Reliant Energy-Arkla gas company were also notified because of the gas leak.

An employee of Palmer's had a wrench which was used to turn the gas off.

After handling the situation at Hawthorne's, Childers and Clark began a search for Ollison. Shortly after the search began a 9-1-1 call came through saying there was a girl running around the old E-Z Mart on Main Street half naked.

When Childers and Clark arrived they saw several people trying to hold Ollison down. Ollison was bare footed and had burned the skin off the bottom of her feet from running on the hot pavement.

She was conscious and thrashing around on the ground and didn't seem to know what she was doing, according to reports.

A paramedic arrived before the ambulance could get to the scene from Arkadelphia. The paramedic reported her pulse to be racing and her eyes didn't look normal.

The ambulance arrived and she was transported to Baptist Medical Center in Arkadelphia where she died the next morning after being treated all night.

The incident is still being investigated with Ollison's body being sent to the state crime lab for an autopsy on Friday morning.