Teen dies after falling from Jeep window in the Great Smoky Mountains, park says

A teenage visitor in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was killed late Tuesday in a bizarre traffic mishap that started when she sat in the window of a moving vehicle, according to the National Park Service.

The victim was identified as 18-year-old Maiah Reilich-Godino of Eddington, Maine, and she was a passenger in the vehicle, officials said in a news release.

It happened about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday “on the Foothills Parkway between Chilhowee Lake and Look Rock,” the release said.

Reilich-Godino “was sitting in an open window” of a 2011 Jeep Patriot and trying to pull up the roof rack moments before she died, officials said.

“She fell from the vehicle when the roof rack she was pulling up on disconnected from the roof,” officials said in the release.

“Blount County Sheriff Office Deputies and park rangers performed CPR until American Medical Response (AMR) ambulance service arrived and pronounced her dead on scene. The driver and front-seat passenger, the only other occupants of the vehicle, were not injured,” the release said.

Reilich-Godino’s Facebook page says she enrolled this year as a student at Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee, and hoped to graduate in 2024.

The college staged a service in her honor Wednesday, according to the Maryville College Center for Campus Ministry.

“What an amazing turn out today as we gathered to support each other over the loss of Maiah Reilich-Godino. She definitely made an impact during her short time here at Maryville College,” the ministry posted late Wednesday on its Facebook page.

This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 1:32 PM with the headline "Teen dies after falling from Jeep window in the Great Smoky Mountains, park says."