Woman In Critical Condition After Rock Crashes Through Windshield

Troopers say a cantaloupe-sized rock fell from the truck around 7:10 p.m. Wednesday near Highway 55 and Kit Road in Morrisville. The rock, which weighed about 5 pounds, authorities said, crashed through the windshield of 41-year-old Ana Beatriz Larson's blue Nissan minivan.

Larson, of Apex, was struck in the head and her car crossed the center line to the left, hit an embankment and went airborne. The car landed on the other side of the embankment.

Larson is listed in critical condition at Duke Hospital.

"Nobody knows the origin of where (the rock) came from -- whether it came out of the back of a dump truck or any other vehicle, or whether it was in the road and was flown up in the air by another vehicle," said Trooper Beckley Vaughan, of the North Carolina Highway Patrol. "We just do not know."

If the rock did fly out of an unsecured truck, serious charges could follow, Vaughan said.

Officials said they are confident that no one purposely threw the rock at the van.

"It doesn't make the family feel any better," Vaughan said. "The consequences of the act are going to be the same whether somebody threw it or whether it came off the back of a truck."

Anyone with information about the truck or the accident is asked to call the Highway Patrol at

(919) 733-3861.