The Daily Southerner, Tarboro, NC

Local News

November 18, 2009

Car flips into Batts Chapel Church, but services go on next morning

T. J. ROYAL

No one was seriously injured, but Batts Chapel Missionary Baptist Church was left with interior and exterior damage after a car ran into it early Sunday morning.

Elizabeth Bonner Melton, 20, of Tarboro was charged with failing to maintain lane control by the N.C. Highway Patrol in the incident, which was reported at 4:28 a.m. Sunday.

Trooper Tim Pope said that Melton was driving south on U.S. 258, returning home from Scotland Neck, when she lost control of the 2004 Toyota passenger car she was driving, flipping five times. Pope said the roof of the Toyota struck the church on Batts Chapel Church Road after its final flip.

Melton had a bruise on her right ankle after the collision, the trooper added.

Batts Chapel officials said that damage was sustained on the church's outside brick wall, as well as inside the church, where walls were cracked and have to be repaired.

Deacon David Gray said the church was cleared to continue having service at the church by Fire Marshal Butch Beach. It plans to continue holding Sunday worship services every second and fourth Sunday of the month.

However, he added that worship services will be moved once the repairs start taking place on the church.

Associate Minister Phyllis Bonds said so far there is no estimate on the amount of damage caused by the collision.

She added that this collision was not as severe as the last time the church had such an incident to occur. On Thanksgiving Day in 1981, she said a car ran through one of the walls of the church.

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