2 improving after critically hurt when car crashed into Greensburg restaurant

GREENSBURG, Ind. (WISH) — Two people on Friday were improving after they were critically injured when a former state lawmaker’s car on Tuesday went into a restaurant on the county courthouse square, the Greensburg police chief said.

The two people, who police have not publicly identified, were flown to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center from the crash. They had been trapped under the car, and one received a tourniquet from a member of the Greensburg Fire Department.

Police Chief Mike McNealy told News 8 by email on Friday, “The last report we received was that they were alert and oriented.”

The pair were among seven people injured in the crash. Two others were stable when taken to Decatur County Memorial Hospital. Three others refused treatment at the crash scene.

The crash happened just before 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Carriage on the Square Smokehouse, a barbecue restaurant on the west side of the Decatur County Courthouse Square.

Cleo Duncan, 83, of Greensburg, was driving the black Honda car that struck the restaurant, police say. Duncan served in the Indiana House of Representatives as a Republican from 1994-2010, according to Ballotopia. She did not seek reelection in 2010.

The accident reconstruction team from the Indiana State Police (ISP) was helping Greensburg Police Department with the investigation. McNealy wrote in the email, “We will not have a complete crash report until we receive all the data from ISP’s crash reconstruction team and the results from the ISP lab. Because of the injury we followed the Serious Bodily Injury statute which required a test. Fortunately the driver was very cooperative in assisting us in those parts of the investigation.”

The police chief says no arrest has been made and no citation was written. “I can say, initially we do not believe there was any malice or criminal intent to the accident,” McNealy wrote in the email.