Mom crashes with 5-month old in car, faces DUI, other charges

With her 5-month-old son riding as a passenger, a 28-year-old St. Petersburg woman was seen running red lights and driving into oncoming traffic before finally crashing her white Chevrolet truck into two parked vehicles and a house last night, St. Petersburg police said.

Billie Jean Vercellona was charged with child abuse and driving-under-the-influence in a wreck involving property damage. Because she also struck three health care providers at Bayfront Medical Center, where she was checked out, she was also charged with three counts of battery on a health care provider.

Witnesses said Vercellona was driving into oncoming traffic on 22nd Avenue North before making a complete circle in the thoroughfare, said St. Petersburg police spokesman George Kajtsa. She then drove onto 19th Street and 13th Avenue before driving onto 16th Street, where she hit the two unoccupied vehicles and the house. No one in the house was injured.

Witnesses said she was driving up onto curbs, ran three red lights and was travelling 80 to 90 mph before the 11:47 p.m. wreck, Kajtsa said.

It was in the 3300 block of 16th Street North where Vercellona hit a Nissan Murano and a blue Chevrolet pickup truck before coming up against the home of the man who owned the blue Chevrolet pickup truck, Kajtsa said, paraphrasing from a police report. Before the crash, she had lost control of her truck, crossed the median and veered across the oncoming lane.

After she was checked out at Bayfront, Vercellona was booked into the Pinellas County Jail. Her son was checked out at All Children's Hospital and then handed over to his grandmother, Kajtsa said.

Before the wreck, St. Petersburg police got a 911 call from Kimberly Crone, who was following Vercellona's pickup truck. Crone told authorities Vercellona was driving erratically in the northbound lanes of 16th Street North before the wreck.

Crone said she approached Vercellona's pickup truck and tried to break the glass on the passenger side, but was unable to do so. She then found the passenger door unlocked and removed Vercellona, and also discovered a baby in an unsecured car carrier wedged under the steering wheel, Crone said.

She said she removed the baby and held him until paramedics arrived. The baby had an injury to the head but appeared to be OK.