At about ten o’clock this morning (October 17), the North Carolina State Highway Patrol responded to a collision in Watauga County on U.S. Highway 321 near Niley Cook Road.

The accident occurred as Boone Police were in pursuit of a southbound 2003 Volkswagen Jetta that had been reported as stolen out of Georgia. The driver of the Jetta lost control, ran off the left side of the road, struck two landscaping boulders in a parking lot, and overturned several times.

The driver of the Jetta, 53-year-old Lewis Archie Woods of Albany, Georgia, was transported by E.M.S. to Watauga Medical Center with minor injuries. A passenger, 37-year-old Jessica Newkirk, of Albany, Georgia, also sustained minor injuries and was transported by E.M.S. Neither occupant was restrained by a seatbelt.