“I was shocked, and never would have expected that to happen,” Jeremiah Johnston, 19, who recorded the bizarre incident on his cellphone, told the television station. "This is Houston, and there are crazy drivers, and I never would have expected to see them going through a cemetery. Especially when everyone was there to pay their respects during a patriotic flyover.”
Driver runs amok and runs over graves at Houston National Cemetery today during flyover event. Meet the young woman who protected her grandfather’s grave at 10- #abc13 pic.twitter.com/o6mb3f7Sj5
— Deborah Wrigley (@wrigleyABC13) May 11, 2020
Amanda Hill, who attended the flyover with her family, was watching the event at the graves of her grandparents, Robert Eugene Marsh and Ruth Marsh. Robert Marsh was a first lieutenant in the Air Force and flew bombing missions over Germany, KTRK reported.
As the ceremony ended Hill said she saw the woman try to navigate out of the cemetery.
“She tried to back up, and then went up on the curb of the section where my grandparents are buried,” Hill told the television station. “(The woman) couldn’t get around some cars, and then she started running over the graves.”
Hill said the woman attempted to go around the traffic three times.
"She went over dozens of graves by the time she finished," Hill told KTRK. "She knew she was being photographed, but she didn't care."
The driver has not been identified. Damages were estimated at $1,000, cemetery officials said, with only sprinklers affected, KTRK reported. There did not appear to be any damages to the markers.
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