Dawes County Attorney and Coroner Vance Haug says an elderly Chadron woman who died following a traffic accident Wednesday afternoon east of Chadron appears to have died of a heart attack.

Haug says the initial investigation by the Dawes County Sheriff’s Office indicates that 77-year-old Joyce Dreyer suffered a “sudden cardiac-related” event while driving on Highway 20 near Henkens Equipment with a friend … Donna “Peggy” Tausan.

Dreyer lost control of the car and it went off the road and into a ditch before Tausan was able to reach over, regain control, and bring the car back up onto the road and to a complete stop.

Haug says two other friends of the Dreyer family … Roland and Lois Molitor…were also driving in the area and stopped to help when they saw the car parked along the highway. The Molitors stayed with Dreyer and Tausan until emergency personnel arrived.