Harrison Thorp 11:32 a.m.
Thursday, October 21, 2021 11:31 am
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ROCHESTER - A elderly Rochester woman was arrested on Wednesday in the hit-and-run accident earlier this month that severely injured a Rochester man.
Joyce Howard, 69, of McDuffee Street, was charged with conduct after an accident, a class B felony that carries a three and a half to seven year prison term if convicted.
Howard is accused of striking 36-year-old Mat Lefebvre around 5:55 a.m. the morning of Oct. 11 as he jogged along North Main Street.
In an interview with WMUR cited in a recent Rochester Voice story, Lefebvre's wife, Nicole, said her husband had seen an SUV traveling down McDuffee Street slow down as it approached the stop sign before North Main Street and began to step into the road to cross in front of it when he heard the car speed up and was struck and knocked to the ground.
"He thought 'phew, that was a really hard hit ... and then he heard the gas again, and they ran him over and he tumbled as they were turning onto North Main Street. He was tumbling underneath the car,'" his wife recounted her husband telling her.
She said the car then stopped for several moments during which her husband composed himself amid the terror and began screaming for help.
'"I'm stuck, I'm stuck, help me,' he yells," she said.
Moments later the car sped away as he screamed, running over his back with its rear wheel and causing a spinal cord rupture that is his most severe injury.
Mat Lefebvre suffered two other spinal cord injuries, nine broken ribs, a broken sternum and clavicle, a punctured lung, nerve damage to his left side and a severe laceration that went from ear to ear on top of his head that took 25 staples to stop the bleeding, according to his wife, who added there is no way the driver didn't know they'd hit someone.
Lefebvre was wearing a headlamp with front and rear strobes when police say Howard struck him while driving a 2011 Hyundai Santa Fe.
Howard was bailed on personal recognizance and will be arraigned in Strafford County Superior Court at a date/time to be determined.