Woman dies after trying to stop car, troopers say

A Montgomery County woman died Monday after she was run over by her own car while taking her dog to a veterinarian in Hereford Township, state police said Tuesday.

Sarah E. Carlin, 39, of Upper Hanover Township, was pronounced dead by an emergency room doctor in Lehigh Valley Hospital, near Allentown, where she was transported by Bally Ambulance after the accident Monday afternoon at Perkiomen Animal Hospital along Route 29 in the Berks County village of Palm.

The Lehigh County coroner’s office said she died of chest injuries. The death was ruled accidental.

State police at Reading provided the following account:

Carlin had pulled her SUV into a parking spot on the western side of the building. She and her 11-year-old daughter went into the building with their dog. Shortly before 4 p.m., the mother, daughter and dog left the building and walked toward their vehicle.

The girl got into the vehicle with the dog and started the ignition while Carlin went back into the building for an unspecified reason.

As the girl crawled over the center console to the passenger seat, she accidentally caused the transmission to shift into reverse and the vehicle began to back out of the parking stall and spin in the parking lot.

Carlin came out of the building and tried to get into the driver’s side to control the vehicle as it began to back down a grassy embankment. She fell and was run over by the driver’s side front wheel.

The vehicle continued in reverse briefly before hitting a storm drain and coming to rest in a ditch.

Paramedics performed CPR before transporting her to the hospital.

Hereford Township Fire Company assisted at the scene.