TOWN OF LOCKPORT — The 44-year-old woman killed by a snowplow Monday night while walking across the road outside her apartment was legally blind and had been drinking alcohol, according to Niagara County sheriff’s investigators.

The woman’s family, however, told The Buffalo News on Tuesday that they don’t think alcohol was a factor in the accident, that she had crossed the road many times before and that they believe a lack of good lighting on the roadway was a major factor.

“Why didn’t the plow driver see her?” her son wondered Tuesday.

Joyce M. Garvey “was a loving person who loved all of her [three] grandchildren and would do anything for anybody,” said her son, Ryan.

Garvey was killed shortly before 7 p. m. Monday while crossing in the 6500 block of Dysinger Road, in front of her home in the Sprucewood Apartments. Originally from Akron, she and her husband, Dennis, had lived in the apartment complex for many years.

She would have turned 45 today.

Garvey spent Monday baby-sitting her 1-year-old granddaughter, Rylee, who lives in an apartment building across Dysinger Road with Garvey’s son.

Ryan Garvey and his sister, Liz Reardon, of Niagara Falls, said Tuesday that they were still trying to “wrap their heads around” what had happened Monday night.

Ryan said he told deputies Monday night that his mother had a beer at 1 p. m., but she had not had any alcohol for several hours before the fatal crash.

Toxicology reports were ordered, and it may take up to six weeks for results.

“I’m not saying she was intoxicated,” Sheriff’s Administrative Capt. Michael J. Filicetti said, “but investigators found the smell of alcohol. All of this [including Garvey’s blindness] combined together.”

The Garvey family, as well as their neighbors, wondered why there aren’t more lights and sidewalks.

Supervisor Marc R. Smith said he wished the town had more money to build sidewalks and put up lighting on every road but that it is unrealistic. He said the neighborhood where the crash occurred has been built up for the past 20 years.

Ryan Garvey said his father went looking for his wife when they saw the stopped Mack truck. His father called his mother on her cell phone and found her in a ditch by following the ringing.

Filicetti said the driver, James Stymus, was not plowing but salting at the time.

Stymus, who was unhurt, has not been charged. Filicetti said Garvey was in the middle of the road at the time of the accident, and Stymus told investigators he did everything he could to avoid her. The plow portion of the truck struck Garvey. Deputies believe she was killed on impact.

“The driver was tested and alcohol was not a factor, but we will be testing to see if the driver or if the pedestrian was texting,” Filicetti said. “In every serious injury accident we look at cell phones.”

Susan Surdej, of the state Department of Transportation, said the department would conduct its own internal investigation.