Every morning, Bertha Kitchen, 63, would place her 3-year-old granddaughter in a stroller and together they would head from her home on Sheffield Street to the post office on East Main Street in Mahaffey, a tiny town in Clearfield County. The trip was about a mile each way.

On Tuesday, as they returned home at 11:20 a.m., a car veered off the roadway and struck Ms. Kitchen and her granddaughter, Samantha Kitchen, who were on the western berm of East Main, killing both.

Tom Bell, mayor of Mahaffey, a town with about 300 residents, came across the scene just after it happened. He said the impact threw Ms. Kitchen and Samantha into a yard along the street.

State police in Punxsutawney identified the driver of the car as Bobbi Jo Morgan, 22, of Patton, Cambria County, who was on her way home from a methadone clinic in Clearfield.

Mr. Bell, 69, said Ms. Morgan apparently fell asleep, because the road passes straight through town with no turns or bends.

After striking Ms. Kitchen and the child, the car continued through a yard, across an alleyway and through another yard, where it smashed into a wooden fence.

Debris from the fence struck and injured an 8-year-old girl, who was walking along the road outside her house.

Ms. Kitchen, a longtime resident whom neighbors said was often seen pushing her granddaughter in the stroller, was pronounced dead at Clearfield Hospital. Samantha was pronounced dead at Punxsutawney Hospital.

Mr. Bell said he was not sure of the family circumstances in the Kitchen household, or if Samantha's mother or father lived with her.

The 8-year-old, whose name was not released, was treated at Punxsutawney Hospital for minor injuries.

Ms. Morgan, who was not wearing a seat belt, suffered minor injuries in the wreck and was treated at Punxsutawney Hospital.

Mr. Bell said others who attend the clinic have fallen asleep at the wheel on the same road. "There was no other reason for it," he said.

But Dr. Neil Capretto, medical director of Gateway Rehabilitation Center, said methadone, a medication used in treating withdrawal symptoms among people addicted to heroin and other drugs, doesn't necessarily impair a person's ability to drive. Such variables as other drugs, dosage and lack of sleep often come into play, he said.

"There are thousands of people in our area who get methadone every day and are able to drive adequately," he said. "Many people get their methadone on their way to work in the morning. That's considered a compromise as opposed to their having to shoot up heroin and committing crimes to support their habit."

A typical clinic patient would receive a liquid dose of methadone mixed with orange juice once a day. The medication, which is a central nervous system depressant, keeps the patient from getting sick during withdrawal.

"Methadone is a medicine. It's purpose is to get you off heroin or another medicine like Vicodin or OxyContin," he said. "When it is controlled, the person taking it is better able to function. Their chances of dying [from drug use] are much less and crime rates go down."

If, however, a person at a methadone clinic appeared to be impaired, he said, that person should not be permitted to leave.

Troopers are investigating the cause of the crash and trying to reconstruct what happened, but no one has been charged.

In October 2005, Ms. Morgan pleaded guilty in Cambria County Common Pleas Court to a charge of conspiring to deliver drugs. She was sentenced to two to four months of house arrest with three months of electronic monitoring. She also was fined and placed on probation.

Reached at her parents' home yesterday, Ms. Morgan refused to comment.

Her parents also would not comment.