The husband of the nurse who drowned when her car was swept off a flooded Leflore County highway Wednesday is furious the road wasn’t blocked off before his wife reached the life-threatening stretch.
And he says he’s planning to sue the Mississippi Department of Transportation and two county governments over her death.
“I’m pissed,” said Isaac Redmond. “That should have been handled properly. That should have been handled better. The road should have been blocked off. DOT should have come out and done their job. Sheriff’s departments on both sides should have come out and done their job.”
Shanika Newton, 43, died Wednesday night when the car she was driving wound up upside down and submerged in water in a rain-swollen ditch off U.S. 49E. The accident occurred about 12 miles south of Greenwood, near the line with Holmes County.
Newton was a licensed practical nurse who worked at the After Hours Clinic at Greenwood Leflore Hospital. Redmond said that his wife had not updated her profile on LinkedIn, which showed her working at two nursing homes.
The couple had been married for almost five years.
Redmond, a truck driver, said his wife had called him less than 10 minutes before 11 p.m. Wednesday to say she was getting ready to leave work and head to their home in Tchula. The next he heard from her was at 11:08 p.m., when she frantically called to say that her car, a 2014 Mazda 6TF, had gone off the two-lane highway and into the water in the adjacent ditch.
“Baby, my car done went off the road,” he recalled her saying. “I’m under water. I can’t push my door open. Water is coming in. Please come help me. Please come help me.”
Redmond said he did not know at the time that the car was completely covered by water.
The line got disconnected, and he called her back at 11:11 p.m. He said she told him that she knew she was not going to survive.
“Baby, I’m not going to make it. I love you. I love you. I love my family. Tell my family I love them. I love you. I love you,” she hollered.
Then the phone cut out.
He called her back immediately. It was 11:14 p.m.. This time there was no answer.
Redmond said it was incorrect, as originally reported, that his wife had called an emergency number to try to get help following the accident. The only person she talked to was him, he said.
The 911 call, according to Redmond, was placed by another nurse, a co-worker of his wife’s from the After Hours Clinic. That nurse was driving home to Lexington, was behind Newton and was able to stop before she hit the flooded stretch of highway. He said she saw the strong current of the floodwater sweep Newton’s mid-size sedan off the road
Redmond said that when he arrived at the scene and realized what had happened, he was overcome. The water on the highway was almost as high as his knees and flowing fast, he said.
“When I got there and saw that I couldn’t see her car, then my emotions were all over the place.”
A dive team had to be deployed to recover her body.
Redmond said he has since heard several accounts convincing him that the authorities were negligent. A nephew spoke at the scene to a state trooper, who allegedly reported that he had called MDOT “a few hours before my wife hit the highway, said that the water is over the road, they need to send somebody out to block the road,” Redmond said.
“Nobody never came out to block the road. Nobody never did anything.”
An MDOT spokesman on Friday provided copies of the efforts the agency made to alert motorists Wednesday about the danger on U.S. 49E specifically as well as about driving on flooded roads in general. All of the warnings about the Leflore County highway, though, were issued after Newton had drowned.
Once the flood report was confirmed, said MDOT’s Michael Flood, a traffic alert warning of delays on both sides of the highway near the county line was sent out in an email and text at 11:41 p.m. Three minutes later, MDOT posted to X, formerly Twitter, a warning advising motorists to seek an alternate route. On Wednesday morning, with flash flooding in the forecast, MDOT posted to Facebook a warning to steer clear of flooded roadways.
“Severe weather and roadway flooding can create extremely hazardous driving conditions quickly, and unfortunately, accidents can occur,” Flood said. “Flooding is a top weather-related killer. That is why we remind motorists to never, ever try and cross a flooded roadway at any opportunity possible, including before the storms arrive ... .”
Flood said Newton’s death “is heartbreaking. My deepest condolences to the family of the victim.”
A high school student from Cruger reportedly encountered the high water well before Newton but her car stayed on the road surface. Redmond said that the young woman posted on Facebook that she had called the sheriff’s departments in both Leflore and Holmes counties to alert them of the dangerous situation.
Redmond was unable on Friday to provide copies of those posts, which he said included a detailed timeline of the student’s calls to law enforcement authorities, but he said he is going to obtain them.
“I’m going to get everything,” he said. “I promise you I’m going to get everything.”
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
