Seven injured when car plows through celebration

DYERSBURG, Tenn. -- An elderly woman plowed her car Monday through a group celebrating the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, critically injuring one woman and hurting six others.

Yolanda Harris was airlifted to The Regional Medical Center in Memphis with internal injuries and a possible broken pelvis after she was hit by a 1993 Ford Taurus driven by 89-year-old Annie Gracie Battles. Harris was in critical condition Monday afternoon.

Harris, her husband and 2-year-old daughter were among some 80 people leaving after speeches, singing and prayer outside the downtown courthouse when Battles drove her car through the crowd at about 11:20 a.m.

"She thought she was pressing the brake but she accelerated instead," said Dyersburg police officer Rob Hunter, who was at the scene when the accident occurred.

Hunter said Harris and her husband jumped in front of their daughter, Maya, to protect her from the car.

"They saved that child's life," Hunter told The Associated Press by phone. "Yolanda got the worst. ... Her husband had a head injury, he pretty much went into the air.''

Harris' husband's injuries were not life-threatening, nor were those of the five other victims, Hunter said.

Battles' car eventually crashed into the front of a vacant building across the street, police said. She was taken to Dyersburg Regional Medical Center for treatment of wrist bruising from the car's airbag.

"Healthwise she is fine. We've ordered a re-evaluation of her license, and she'll probably lose it," Hunter said. "But there likely won't be any other charges."

Local NAACP president Anthony Carter had finished his keynote speech minutes before the accident occurred. Carter, a former Army medic in Vietnam, said the scene reminded him of combat.

A child's shoe littered the ground once all victims were tended to, along with a bloody handkerchief, a pair of broken glasses and a small Bible.

"Awful. Just awful," said Jessie Kirk, who also witnessed the accident.