Slick roads blamed in crash
Roads were slushy Friday when woman drove off road into pond in Verona.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
By Aaron Gifford
Staff writer

Slippery roads were to blame in the death of a 69-year-old woman whose car veered off a Verona road Friday and overturned in a farm pond, state police said.
Ruth A. Warner, of 5737 Main St., Verona, skidded on Beacon Light Road before she overcorrected the path of her 2003 Mercury and drove off the other side of the road, striking a barbed-wire fence and landing in the water just before 3 p.m., said Lt. David Krause of state police Troop D's Bureau of Criminal Investigations.
"There were some slushy conditions," he said Saturday. "It looked like the cause was weather and operator error.

Krause said a witness called 911 and the property owner attempted to get the car out of the pond before Verona firefighters arrived at the scene.
The crash is still under investigation. The Onondaga County Medical Examiner's Office will examine whether Warner experienced a medical problem before her car went off the road, Krause said.
Warner was returning home at the time of the crash. She had just dropped off several great-nieces and great-nephews at a relative's house after taking them to see the movie "Chicken Little" in Oneida, said her son, Eric Warner, of Vernon.
"She was doing what she wanted to do," Eric Warner said. "She loved kids. She was a sweet woman. She was someone who always wanted to know what it is someone else wanted, so she could help them."
Ruth Warner taught kindergarten at W.A. Wettel Elementary School in Vernon for 32 years before retiring in the late 1990s, Eric said.
A crowd of more than 50 relatives and friends gathered at a local church Thursday for Thanksgiving, and Ruth's holiday joy continued into Friday when she spent the afternoon with great-nieces and great-nephews who traveled here from Ohio, her son said.
"We had a big Warner Thanksgiving," he said. "There were at least four generations."
"She was greatly loved and will be greatly missed."
In addition to her son, Warner is survived by her husband, Richard S. Warner; a sister, Lois Agne, of Van Buren; daughters Lynne Stocker, of Bridgeport, and Debbie Crane, of Rome; and several grandchildren.