STORY CITY — An Ames woman died instantly Friday morning when

her car rear-ended a field cultivator pulled by a tractor along the

border between Boone County and Story County.

Carol Lawson, 50, 1409 Indiana Ave., was traveling north along Y

Avenue about five miles southwest of Story City just before 9 a.m.

and apparently didn’t see the slow-moving tractor, said Capt. Gary

Foster of the Story County Sheriff’s Office.

“I didn’t notice anything until I got stopped,” said Paul E.

Jensen, 547 Y Ave. in rural Ames, who was driving the tractor and

pulling a wide chisel plow to a field just northeast of the

accident site. “I turned around and saw the car beneath me.”

Jensen said he got out of the tractor and went to the mid-size

silver Chrysler, which had continued its travel until it was

underneath the plow. The passenger compartment and engine were

crushed, and the wreck left skid marks and a debris field of

chisels from the plow and metal bits over about 70 feet of

roadway.

“Looking at her, I assumed she was dead,” Jensen said. “I was

interested in getting a hold of 911 because I couldn’t have gotten

her out anyway.”

Jensen and neighbors watched idly for about an hour while

firefighters and police officials worked to extricate the woman

from her vehicle. She was removed at about 10:05 a.m.

“I heard the sound from inside the house,” said Phil Wirth,

13598 500th Ave. in rural Story City. The accident occurred just

outside Wirth’s home. “I thought something fell off the house.”

Friday morning was sunny and the accident occurred on a flat,

straight length of road that Jensen and Wirth both said is

frequented by farm equipment in the spring and fall. Jensen said he

was moving about 19 mph when he felt the tractor shudder and

thought his plow had dropped to the road.

Foster said he sees farm-related roadway accidents about once a

year, usually during planting and harvesting seasons.

“We hope that people will drive carefully and take a little

extra time to get to their destination when they’re traveling on

these farm roads,” he said.

Jensen lives two miles south of the accident site and had almost

reached his field.

“If I’d done chores five minutes faster or taken five minutes

more to do them, I bet it’d never happened,” he said.