Woman, her mother still in hospitals

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Staff report

Two Rowan County women injured in a Christmas Day accident on Stokes Ferry Road remain hospitalized.

Olive Robinson Fowler, 85, of 8655 U.S. 601, Salisbury, was listed in serious condition Friday night at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem.

Her daughter, Paige Fowler Lyerly, 59, of 3890 Old Union Church Road, Salisbury, continued in fair condition at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.

Lyerly’s husband, 66-year-old James Brown Lyerly, and 39-year-old Edie Melissa Patterson, of 12855 Stokes Ferry Road, died in the same head-on collision Monday.

Paige Lyerly is the mother of Laura Lyerly, administrative assistant for Downtown Salisbury Inc. and well familiar to merchants and property owners in the central business district. Fowler is her grandmother.

The accident happened not far from Patterson’s Stokes Ferry Road home about 13 miles southeast of Salisbury.

The N.C. Highway Patrol reported that Edie Patterson’s 2003 Mazda Protege was attempting to pass her husband Eric’s Ford Explorer when it plowed head on into a 2002 Buick Century driven by Paige Lyerly.

James Lyerly was in the back seat of the Buick Century, and Fowler and Paige Lyerly were in the front of the car.

The accident occurred about 4:30 p.m. Christmas Day. The Lyerlys reportedly were headed home from Raleigh.