Pensioner killed after being hit by car while trying to help injured goose

A pensioner was killed as she tried to shoo away an injured goose from a country road.

Lynette Brimble, 67, suffered severe head and other injuries when she was hit head on by a car along the dark road, reports the Daily Mail.

Mrs Brimble was on her way home after watching a play with her neighbour Ann Clough when she spotted the injured goose in their lane on the A377 near Crediton, Devon, last July.

Mrs Clough said in a statement to Plymouth and south Devon coroner Ian Arrow that when the pair turned around the injured goose was still sitting in the lane of the 60mph road.

She said Mrs Brimble, who lived in Lapford, Devon, repeatedly flashed her headlights at an oncoming car which she had seen in the pitch black road where there were no street lights.

She then got out of her car to try and 'shoo' the goose away. Mrs Clough said that Mrs Brimble was 'half in, half out' of her Citroen Zara.

'The next thing I knew the oncoming car had hit Lynette. I heard a bang and saw her flying down the
road.'

Mrs Clough could not say how quickly the black Ford Focus was going.

The driver, grandmother Ellen Pope said that by the time she saw the victim it was too late. 'I knew I
was going to hit her, I had nowhere to go.'

A coroner said the mother-of-two, originally from St Andrews, in Scotland, died as a result of a road traffic collision and said: 'It is one of the most unusual cases I have heard of.'

MPC Marcus Rowe told the inquest that the car was on the proper side of the road and Mrs Brimble was in the car's carriageway when she was hit.

He said: 'She was nearer the white line than the verge.'

He estimated her speed at between 25mph and 39mph at the time of the impact.

Motor Patrol Sergeant Richard Newton said Mrs Pope did not see Mrs Brimble's stationary car flashing its headlights and said she had not committed any offences.

Mrs Brimble died in Plymouth hospital five days after the collision.

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