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Camden New Journal - by ROISIN GADELRAB and RICHARD OSLEY
Published: 16 August 2007

New Journal reporter Roisin Gadelrab at crash site in Miller’s Dale

A tragic accident in tourist beauty spot

MOST drivers will flash down the dipping road between Buxton and the picturebook stop-off point at Miller’s Dale without even noticing the spot where Salma ElSharkawy died.
Those on foot are just as likely to miss the small shrine of stuffed toys and miniature horses resting underneath a tree. The public footpath leads hikers elsewhere, towards a stream that rolls towards an old-fashioned watermill covered in creepers and elevated fields of heather and rogue dandelions.
It was in this most idyllic countryside that tragedy struck on July 3.
Look closely at the roadside and there is a scorched patch of earth on one of the grassy banks where the green Peugeot driven by Salma’s care worker, Beth Fitton, collided with a tree, flipped over a row of barbed wire and exploded into a fireball. Neither of them stood much chance of surviving.
Six weeks on, tiny bits of broken glass and even metallic shards of the car remain embedded in the dirt.
Although the inquiry into what went wrong is ongoing, investigators working out how Ms Fitton apparently lost control at the wheel have been and gone, replaced by cards and tributes.
One left by one of Salma’s friends in Camden simply said: “You filled our lives with fun and laughter.”
There are go slow warning signs and a local campaign for new focus on road safety throughout Derbyshire but even regular road users are at a loss to explain what might have happened on one of the straightest parts of an otherwise winding road.
Ms Fitton, well known locally as a promising athlete, had apparently eased off on her sports training to begin a career in care work. She was out with a Salma on a shopping trip when they died.

See also
Silence on adventure centre
Salma's final days
What the council said

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