A 40-year-old Hayti woman is dead and the Dunklin County Coroner is ruling it a suicide after she apparently freed herself from hand and feet restraints and jumped out of a moving transport vehicle.
Lavonda Brown was reportedly being transported to a psychiatric facility on a medical hold by a Pemiscot County Sheriff's Department deputy and a guard, according to a press release from Dunklin County Sheriff Bob Holder.
"A Pemiscot County sheriff's deputy radioed the Dunklin County Communications Center and requested assistance," Sheriff Holder said. The deputies said that they were on Highway 25 at Holcomb.
According to Holder, Brown was being transported to Poplar Bluff, Mo., in a transport van.
"It is believed during the transport that Brown was able to remove her hands and feet from the restraints while talking to the deputies who were transporting her," Holder said. "Brown at that point was able to make her way to the double doors on the side of the van and then open the doors allowing her to jump out of the moving van."
The report indicates that the two deputies stopped the van and began to render first aid to Brown. The deputies were assisted by several passing motorists who stopped to assist. Holder says that medical personnel were dispatched to the scene along with Dunklin County deputies, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and the Holcomb Police and Fire Departments.
Brown was airlifted by Air EVAC to St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo. She was kept on life support and subsequently died from her injuries. The coroner has ruled the incident as a suicide. The Pemiscot County deputy and his guard were not injured in the incident.