Valley playwright and actress Terry Earp is in serious condition after being hit by an SUV while she was riding a bicycle Saturday.
Earp, 58, is best known for her historical stage plays performed by husband Wyatt Earp — great-nephew of the Old West lawman — and herself.
She, along with her husband and a family friend, had left the Earps’ north Phoenix home and was bicycling to breakfast when, shortly after 6:30 a.m., the driver of a 2003 Honda Pilot, traveling east, ran a red light at Union Hills Drive and Central Avenue and hit her, according to Phoenix detective Stacie Derge.
Terry Earp, who was wearing a helmet, was taken to John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital, where she had several surgeries and is in an induced coma.
The Earps’ agent, Kathy Collins, said Earp suffered a spinal injury that could leave her a quadriplegic or paraplegic. Wyatt Earp did not return phone calls
Tuesday, referring all calls to Collins.
The driver of the sport utility vehicle, 28-year-old Jason Foree, was cited with running a red light. No other charges are pending, Derge said.
“I’m terribly saddened because Terry is my friend. However, I see improvements every day,” said longtime friend and theatrical collaborator A. Nannette Taylor. “Terry is a fighter.”
Taylor had been directing rehearsals of the Earps’ latest productions, updated editions of longtime bioplay projects called “Wyatt Earp: A Life on the Frontier” and “Mrs. Wyatt Earp,” to be performed in January at Scottsdale’s Kerr Cultural Center, where Taylor serves as managing director.
“(The crash was) in the blink of an eye, literally,” Taylor said. “It really brings home how fragile everything is.”
Updates on Terry Earp’s condition are expected to be posted at www.wyattearp.biz.
