An 80-year-old woman died after a vehicle rolled backward and wedged her between its open driver’s-side door and the vehicle itself in the Baden neighborhood of north St. Louis. Police identified the victim as Beulah Brandon of St. Louis County, and said the ordeal unfolded on the 8200 block of North Broadway around 12:45 p.m. on Sunday.
According to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, Brandon had exited her vehicle on an incline on North Broadway when the vehicle began rolling backward. The moving car wedged her between the open driver’s-side door and underneath the vehicle, according to police. EMS crews responded and rushed her to a hospital, where she later died, police said.
Per reporting from FOX 2, Brandon was first taken to a local hospital for treatment before she succumbed to her injuries. The department’s Accident Reconstruction unit responded to the scene and is handling the investigation, which police describe as ongoing.
What Investigators Have Said So Far
Police have not released additional details beyond the sequence of events: Brandon stepping out of her car on a sloped stretch of North Broadway, the vehicle rolling backward, and the door and undercarriage trapping her before EMS arrived. The case remains active, and no further findings have been made public.
How Common Are Rollaway Deaths
Fatal rollaway incidents like the one that killed Brandon are a recognized, if lesser-known, category of non-traffic vehicle deaths nationally. A report from Safety Research & Strategies, Inc. found that rollaways accounted for 17 percent of non-traffic crash deaths between 2016 and 2020, averaging 144 fatalities and roughly 1,886 nonoccupant injuries each year nationwide. The same analysis noted that 2020 had the lowest number of people injured in non-traffic crashes during that five-year span, even as it recorded the highest number killed.
An earlier federal analysis cited in that report found rollaway vehicles killed 360 nonoccupants from 2012 through 2014, averaging 120 fatalities per year. Separately, a snippet from the ROSAP / National Transportation Library repository put the broader annual toll of non-traffic motor vehicle crashes at an estimated 2,449 deaths per year from 2016 to 2020, with about 35 percent of those killed being nonoccupants such as pedestrians and bicyclists. These figures reflect national, historical trends and do not speak to the cause of Brandon’s death or any pattern specific to the St. Louis area.
No details have been released about why the vehicle began rolling, and investigators have not indicated whether a mechanical issue or any other factor played a role. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has not announced a timeline for when the Accident Reconstruction investigation might conclude.
