A month after Kent elementary school teacher Stacy Ankerfelt was seriously injured by a car, the Auburn woman passed away at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The man who hit Ankerfelt, Samuel Cruz, remains in jail with bail set at $100,000. The King County Prosecutor’s Office expects to upgrade charges against Cruz from vehicular assault to vehicular homicide within the next few days.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Cruz was allegedly driving while under the influence of a prescription drug when he hit Ankerfelt as she stood along side her car near her Auburn home. Cruz told investigators at the scene of the accident he takes a drug called Suboxone for opiate dependency.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Aug. 6.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
More than $38,000 had been raised by family, friends and the community for Ankerfelt’s medical expenses.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Firefighters had found her knocked unconscious, with multiple skull fractures, a cerebral hemorrhage and broken ribs from the July 19 accident.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
She was at Harborview Medical Center in intensive care listed in serious condition for a month before she died earlier this week.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Scenic Hill Elementary School officials, where Ankerfelt taught, plan to honor the teacher with an ongoing tribute to her.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Principal Danielle Pfeiffer said students who demonstrate characteristics and qualities Ankerfelt possessed will receive “A” T-shirts for Ankerfelt.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The fifth-grade teacher was well respected amongst her peers and work associates.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Contact reporter Tracey Compton at tcompton@rentonreporter.com<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A month after Kent elementary school teacher Stacy Ankerfelt was seriously injured by a car, the Auburn woman passed away at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":9162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9161"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}