By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Alabama State Troopers reported late last week that an Atmore woman succumbed to injuries she suffered July 18 when the 1997 Ford Mustang in which she was riding left a rural roadway and struck a tree, a finding that the victim’s family contends is not true.
Troopers reported in a July 25 “Delayed Fatality Report” that Victoria Skye DeSilvey, 28, “died from her injuries on July 23,” at University Hospital in Mobile. She was airlifted to the regional trauma center after the single-vehicle accident.
But a member of DeSilvey’s family, reportedly her mother, posted on the Atmore News Facebook page that the wreck had nothing to do with the woman’s death.
“Our baby girl passed away due to her health; it had nothing to do with the wreck,” wrote Daniela Boyington, who pointed out that DeSilvey suffered several medical maladies.
“She had kidney failure since the age of 16,” wrote Boyington. “She was diagnosed (with) congestive heart failure, and (it) was recently found that she had blood clots everywhere.”
Sgt. Derek Gessner of the trooper post in Evergreen said Tuesday morning that the determination that she died as a result of a crash came from the doctors who treated DeSilvey.
“She did have all those problems,” Gessner said. “But we talked with the doctors and medical staff at the hospital, and they say she died because of the crash. Her body was in a weak condition, and that didn’t help. If the doctors had told us something different, we would have retracted the press release.”
The crash occurred July 18, around 8:42 p.m., on Booneville Road, 18 miles north of Atmore.
According to trooper reports, the driver of the Mustang, Chad Houston Alverson, 33, of Atmore and an unknown female passenger were uninjured in the crash.