A 60-year-old Germantown woman died Thursday night when she crashed into a backyard deck after fleeing the scene of a fender bender, losing control of her car while attempting a sharp turn and driving through a fence, Montgomery County police said.
Isaura Justina Mateo, who was driving a red 1994 Subaru Legacy station wagon, left the scene of an accident at the intersection of Middlebrook Road and Scenery Drive, according to police.
The 37-year-old man driving a 2005 Nissan Pathfinder, which Mateo allegedly damaged, followed her and watched as the 60-year-old attempted a left turn at high speed from Scenery Drive onto Sceptre Ridge Terrace.
Mateo then lost control, skidded off the road, went through the fence and ended up wedged underneath the deck.
The family that owns the home was away on vacation, neighbors said.
It’s not the first time cars have come crashing into the backyardsalong the 19700 block of Maycrest Way in Germantown.
Moncia Steyskal, who lives three doors down from the house with the wrecked deck, said between 2004 and 2006 she had four cars come crashing through her backyard as they lost control on a sharp, downhill turn along Scenery Drive, which runs behind her yard.
In one instance, a teenage boy driving a Porsche slammed into her cherry tree, then reversed and took off, leaving his license plate behind, Steyskal said.
The accidents started racking up not long after Scenery Drive was turned from a dead end to a through street in 2001, she said.
But after the fourth car obliterated her backyard fence, Steyskal said she and others in the neighborhood clamored for a guardrail along Scenery Drive.
The county responded in the winter of 2006, but the guardrail that was installed doesn’t extend to the Scenery Drive-Sceptre Ridge Terrace intersection.
“This accident really presented a different situation. I can’t say the county didn’t do enough” to prevent the cars from sliding into her yard, she said. “There’s been more growth in our community,” Steyskal said. “But this isn’t quite the urbanization we were hoping for.”
