Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Injured in 2000, Bucks woman dies

An SUV ran over her as she sunbathed in Fla. Incapacitated since, she had a seizure last week.

Louise Hamlin, right, cries as she holds a picture of her granddaughter, Megan Hamlin, who died after 10 years in a coma brought after she was run over by an SUV in Florida in 2000.
Louise Hamlin, right, cries as she holds a picture of her granddaughter, Megan Hamlin, who died after 10 years in a coma brought after she was run over by an SUV in Florida in 2000.Read more

Megan Hamlin, 26, a Bucks County woman run over by an SUV while sunbathing in Florida 10 years ago, died Monday after years in a vegetative state.

Hamlin had a seizure Saturday at the Luther Woods Convalescent Center in Hatboro and was taken to Abington Memorial Hospital, where she died from complications, said her grandmother Louise Hamlin.

On the afternoon of June 20, 2000, Megan Hamlin, then 16, was sunbathing with a friend on a St. Augustine beach when the SUV ran over their heads. Jessica Rowen suffered serious facial injuries but was able to graduate from Central Bucks High School West. Megan Hamlin eventually came out of a coma, but not beyond what doctors called a vegetative state.

"As far as Grandmom was concerned, I still know there was somebody still in there," Louise Hamlin, 77, said.

"It's hard to believe this sweet, beautiful, young child is gone," she said after her granddaughter died.

In 2000, Rowen's mother drove the two teens and two others to Florida for a vacation. Jo-Ann Rowen said after the accident that she had heard a "thump, thump." She turned to find her daughter screaming and Megan Hamlin bleeding heavily and lying motionless.

The driver of the SUV, Joseph B. Edmondson Jr., said he did not know he had driven over the girls. Under Florida law, the SUV was permitted on the beach.

Edmondson pleaded no contest to a careless-driving charge. His driver's license was revoked for one year, he was fined $1,000, and was ordered to perform 120 hours of community service.

In 2002, the Hamlin family reached a $17.5 million settlement with Edmondson and his insurance company. The money was intended to pay for Megan Hamlin's nursing-home bills for the rest of her life.

As part of the settlement, the State of Florida said it would name the boardwalk at the site of the accident in Megan Hamlin's memory.

Louise Hamlin said she did not know whether that was ever done.