BY C.J. MARSHALL
Times-Shamrock Writer

A 95-year-old Springville woman charged with the unintentional death of a passenger in a car her vehicle collided with in mid-December pleaded guilty in February before Magisterial District Judge David Plummer to a charge of careless driving which was moved from a criminal charge to a traffic summons.

As part of her guilty plea, Alice C. Clink of Marcy Road, Springville, agreed to pay a mandatory fine of $500 for the summary offense.

Clink also turned her drivers license over to Wyoming County assistant District Attorney Timothy J. Carroll Jr., who represented the commonwealth at Clink’s preliminary hearing on Tuesday.

Before the plea was accepted, Plummer announced that the commonwealth was withdrawing charges of reckless endangerment and driving on roadways laned for traffic. After her guilty plea was accepted, Clink paid her fine in full and was permitted to leave the courtroom.

Court records indicate that Clink was driving south on Route 29, just north of Tunkhannock around 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 12 when her 2006 Dodge Stratus crossed the center line and collided head-on with vehicle heading north that had a driver and two passengers.

Tunkhannock Twp. Patrolman James Kearns reported that all individuals, including a passenger in Clink’s vehicle, were taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital.

One week later, on Dec. 19, Lackawanna County Coroner Timothy Rowlands stated that Robert Atticks, 90, of Montrose, passed away at Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton “from internal injuries from blunt force trauma suffered from the collision.”

According to court records, Clink told police she felt fatigued and believes she “dozed off” briefly and was suddenly awakened by the driver side airbag when it deployed and struck her in the face, but had no further recollection of the collision.

The driver of the vehicle which had Atticks as passenger told police she tried to flash her lights and honk her horn to get the attention of the driver of the oncoming vehicle but to no avail.