A world traveler mom of two was revealed as the woman tragically killed during a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Kentucky on Saturday after she was dragged underneath a float and crushed to death in front of dozens of celebrants.
Joan Pannuti Pottinger, 50, was walking alongside a float filled with hay bales that was hitched to a gray pickup truck at the Louisville, Kentucky St. Patrick’s Day parade when her foot somehow got caught on the vehicle.
She was yanked underneath the float moments later. Horrified volunteers and parade-goers rushed to her aid as the entire procession slowed to a standstill.
Pottinger was later pronounced dead at the University of Louisville Hospital.
In the immediate aftermath of the freak accident, some spectators didn’t even realize someone had been injured.
David Gnamba, a food vendor at the parade, told NBC affiliate WAVE 3 that he watched as emergency responders hauled Pottinger away on a stretcher. He didn’t think he’d witnessed “something very serious” and was floored when word started spreading that someone had died.
“It does break my heart because that’s a person that lost their life … this is not news that we want to hear — as human beings, as vendors, as people, as partygoers,” Gnamba told the outlet.
Stephanie Youstra, a volunteer mascot, told the outlet that she had just wrapped up her part of the route when the floats behind her stopped moving. Rumors about the incomprehensible accident eventually made its way up to the front of the parade.
“My heart just goes out to anyone who was in that float, and all the people in that float, and the family. I just can’t imagine what they are all feeling,” Youstra said.
Pottinger’s friends and family confirmed her passing in posts on social media.
After a decade-long career with Kraft Foods, Pottinger took an elongated break from the workforce.
She pivoted to the nonprofit Best Buddies International in 2024. In less than a year, she rose from development coordinator to the director of mission advancement for Kentucky, according to her LinkedIn.
In her free time, Pottinger could often be found traveling with her husband and their two daughters, ages 9 and 13, as documented on her Facebook.
A close friend set up a GoFundMe “in honor Joan Pottinger and the incredible impact she had on everyone who knew her.” It cleared its first goal less than a day after it was posted and was inching towards $50,000 in donations as of Monday evening.
