2009 Taconic State Parkway crash
2009 Taconic State Parkway crash | |
---|---|
Details | |
Date | July 26, 2009 1:35 pm EDT |
Location | Taconic State Parkway, Mount Pleasant, near Briarcliff Manor, New York, U.S. |
Statistics | |
Vehicles | 2003 Ford Windstar minivan 2004 Chevrolet TrailBlazer SUV 2002 Chevrolet Tracker SUV |
Deaths | 8 |
Injured | 3 |
The 2009 Taconic State Parkway crash was a
The ensuing investigation into the crash's cause received nationwide media attention.
Day of the incident
At approximately 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 26, 2009, 36-year-old Diane Schuler left the Hunter Lake Campground in
On the way back to their home in West Babylon, on Long Island, Schuler stopped at a McDonald's restaurant and a Sunoco gas station in Liberty. Surveillance video lacking audio, recorded at the gas station, shows Schuler arriving at and leaving, and going inside the station's convenience store. Schuler’s husband, sister-in-law, and an investigator working on their behalf all made claims and/or inferences that Schuler had spoken to the clerk while attempting to buy over-the-counter pain-relief medication, although the gas station did not sell the one she wanted.
Schuler left Liberty just after 11 a.m., traveling along
At about 1 p.m., another call was made to Hance from Schuler's cell phone. During this call, one of her nieces reportedly told her father that Schuler was having trouble seeing and speaking clearly. Schuler herself then talked to Hance and said that she was disoriented and could not see clearly. Police believe that the car was stopped in a pull-off area beyond the Tappan Zee Bridge tollbooths for at least part of this call. Hance reportedly told Schuler to stay off the road, while he came to meet them; follow-up calls from Hance to Schuler were not answered. At this point, she left her cell phone along the highway; it was found by another motorist by the side of the road near the tollbooths.[9][12][14][15]
Investigators did not determine what route Schuler took from the bridge to the
Schuler's minivan traveled south for 1.7 miles (2.7 km) in the parkway's northbound
Two men who witnessed the crash and saw smoke rising out of the minivan ran to assist the occupants. After removing Schuler from the vehicle, the two men saw a large, broken Absolut Vodka bottle by the driver's side. The men tried to pull the girls out of the minivan and noted that they had no pulse. Because the children had come to rest in a pile together, the men did not notice Schuler's son, Bryan, lodged under another child. Bryan was the only survivor of the crash.
Victims
Schuler, her daughter, and two of her nieces died at the scene of the crash, along with the three men in the TrailBlazer: 81-year-old Michael Bastardi, his 49-year-old son Guy, and their friend, 74-year-old Dan Longo. The two occupants of the Tracker suffered only minor injuries. Schuler's severely injured third niece and her 5-year-old son Bryan were taken to area hospitals, where the niece died later that day.
Intoxication levels
A
The incident drew nationwide attention as Schuler's husband, Daniel, strongly disagreed with the conclusion that she was heavily intoxicated at the time of the crash.[2] In an August 8 press conference, Daniel and his attorney, Dominic Barbara, initially denied, given that several children had been with them, that Diane had taken any illegal drugs or was drinking that weekend at the campground. Daniel then changed his story, and consistently denied that his wife ever "drank to excess" or could have been drunk while driving at the time of the collision.[21][23][24] When Larry King and Oprah Winfrey asked Daniel about the vodka bottle discovered in the minivan, he claimed that the couple always kept an "old" bottle in their camper. He further stated that Diane did all the packing for the camping trip and must have moved the bottle into the van.
Daniel eventually admitted that he and his wife had, in fact, consumed alcohol during the camping trip; he denied that Diane had had anything to drink on the day preceding the crash.[25][26] The campground co-owner, who had gotten to know the Schulers well, had seen them off at approximately 9 a.m. that morning, and stated that Diane appeared to be sober. The gas station clerk whom Schuler asked for pain medication at around 11 a.m. also said, "[I knew] for a fact [that] she wasn't drunk when she came into the station."[20][27] According to Tom Ruskin, a private investigator hired by Daniel's lawyers, none of the McDonald's employees had seen anything in Schuler's behavior to suggest that she was intoxicated. In fact, she had been observed carrying on an extended conversation while ordering her food and orange juice.[28]
Ruskin told reporters in early September that he had interviewed Diane's relatives, none of whom had ever seen her intoxicated by alcohol.
Daniel denied that his wife took illegal drugs, but told investigators that she smoked marijuana "occasionally"; the family told People magazine that she used the drug to relieve insomnia.[33][32] Although Daniel was an "officer" in the Public Security Unit of the Nassau County Police Department, he was not required to report his wife's drug use, as he was a civilian employee.[33][34] In November, it was reported that Diane's sister-in-law had made a statement to police that Diane had, in fact, smoked marijuana on a regular basis.[25][26]
Daniel and his attorney, Barbara, believed that Schuler was driving erratically due to a sudden medical emergency, such as a
In September, a New York forensic pathologist[
Daniel's persistence in disputing his wife's intoxication and drug use was condemned by relatives of the three TrailBlazer victims.
In June 2010, following eleven months of analysis, the New York State Police issued its final report on the crash. The report upheld the previous toxicology findings that, at the time of the crash, Schuler was highly intoxicated by alcohol and had high levels of THC in her system.[40]
Legal action
According to the Westchester County medical examiner, the crash was ruled a
Following a request from the Bastardi family that an administrator be appointed for Schuler's estate so that a lawsuit could be filed, Daniel officially declined the role in November 2009, leaving it to a county-court judge to appoint a public administrator.[45][46] On December 10, the Bastardi family filed suit against Schuler and her brother, Warren Hance, seeking unspecified damages for wanton, willful, and reckless conduct. According to the family's lawyers, they were required by state law to include Hance in the suit because he was the owner of the minivan.[47]
In July 2011, Jackie Hance, who lost her three daughters in the crash, filed suit against Daniel, her brother-in-law.
Child Passenger Protection Act
In August 2009, New York Governor David Paterson proposed the Child Passenger Protection Act, which would make it a felony to drive while intoxicated if a passenger under the age of 16 is in a vehicle.[27] The proposal became known as Leandra's Law following the October 2009 death of 11-year-old Leandra Rosado, a passenger in a vehicle whose driver was drunk.[50] The Child Passenger Protection Act was signed into state law on November 18, 2009.[51]
Media
In September 2009, the syndicated talk show
The Law & Order episode "Doped," which first aired in November 2009, centers on an extremely similar fictional crash. It features a woman who speeds down the West Side Highway in the wrong direction before crashing and killing herself, her daughter and her two nieces, and another family in another car.[54] Bastardi relatives reacted with anger upon hearing that the NBC drama would be basing an episode on the real-life tragedy.[55]
Jackie Hance wrote a book called I'll See You Again in which the tragedy is revisited, focusing on her initial grief and later reemergence into life.
The Hance Family Foundation
Jackie and Warren Hance formed a foundation, the Hance Family Foundation, whose main purpose is to honor the lives of their three daughters by ensuring healthy, happy, and safe children through innovative self-esteem educational programming. The foundation's central project is Beautiful Me, a self-esteem program designed to educate girls by promoting appreciation for their genuine qualities, accurate self-awareness, and the satisfaction of helping others.[59]
See also
- Schoharie limousine crash
- List of traffic collisions (2000–present)
- Carrollton bus collision, similar 1988 crash in Kentucky involving intoxicated driver going the wrong way on a divided highway; killed 27.
References
- ^ Snedeker, Louise (27 July 2011). "Wrong Way Tragedy: Supporting First Responders". The Rivertowns Daily Voice. Archived from the original on 9 July 2019. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
- ^ a b Lee, Tien-Shun (25 July 2011). "Wrong Way Tragedy: Shock, Mystery Still Linger". The Briarcliff Daily Voice. Archived from the original on 9 July 2019. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
- ^ Michelin, Robert (26 July 2011). "Wrong Way Tragedy: First Responders Look Back". The Briarcliff Daily Voice. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
- ^ Ali, A., "4 Kids, 4 Adults Die on Taconic," The Journal News (Lower Hudson), July 26, 2009.
- ^ "Bus Owners Ask Change in Venue" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-07-26. Retrieved 2009-09-13.
- ^ "Interview with Tom Ruskin". cnn.com. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
- ^ "Crash Mom Was Fully 'Loaded'", New York Post, August 5, 2009.
- ^ NY Police: Woman Was OK at Restaurant Before Crash Archived 2009-08-16 at the Wayback Machine, WCBS, Aug 7, 2009.
- ^ a b c d e Fitz-Gibbon J, Bandler J., "A Week after the Crash, Questions Remain," The Journal News (Lower Hudson), August 3, 2009.
- ^ a b Gendar, A., Chapman, B., Goldsmith, S.,Driver in deadly Taconic crash Diane Schuler was drunk, had marijuana in system, New York Daily News, August 4, 2009.
- ^ "Taconic-Crash Mom Drunk, High, Tests Reveal Archived 2009-08-07 at the Wayback Machine," Times Herald-Record, August 5, 2009.
- ^ a b Baker, A., and Kovaleski, S., "Alcohol and Phone-Call Details in Wrong-Way Crash," The New York Times, August 8, 2009.
- ^ Crowley, Kieran. "Taconic ma twice car sick." New York Post, 2009-11-09.
- ^ Cohen S, and Bandler J, "Driver Spoke on Phone with Brother 25 Minutes Before Fatal Crash Archived 2009-08-17 at the Wayback Machine," The Journal News (Lower Hudson), July 30, 2009.
- ^ Baker, A., "Investigators Reconstruct a Route That Led to 8 Deaths," The New York Times, August 2, 2009.
- ^ Foderado, L.W., Schweber, N.,"Bad Omens, a Fateful Turn, and 8 Lives Lost," The New York Times, July 28, 2009.
- ^ Marchant, R., "Wrong-way Turn onto Taconic Puzzles Many Archived 2009-07-31 at the Wayback Machine," The Journal News (Lower Hudson), July 28, 2009 (Video).
- ^ Gorman, S., "Child's Helpless Eyes Haunt Ossining Firefighter Archived 2009-08-13 at the Wayback Machine," The Journal News (Lower Hudson), August 10, 2009.
- ^ a b Ferran, Lee. "Diane Schuler, Wrong-Way Highway Driver Who Killed 8, Had 10 Drinks, Was High." ABC News, 2009-08-04. Accessed 2009-09-16. Archived 2009-09-18.
- ^ a b c Welch, William M. "All Reported Normal Before Woman's Fatal Wrong-Way Drive." USA Today, 2009-08-13.
- ^ a b c d e Fitz-Gibbon, Jorge and Shawn Cohen. "Husband: Wrong-way Driver Didn't Drink." USA Today, 2009-08-06.
- ^ a b c Amon, Michael. "ME: Schuler retests will show lower alcohol content." Newsday, 2009-09-08.
- ^ a b "Wrong-Way Crash: "Diane Would Not Do This." CBS News, 2009-08-07.
- ^ a b c d Ali, Aman. "Victims' Families Express Revulsion at Schuler's TV Appearance." The Journal News (Lower Hudson), 2009-09-03. Accessed 2009-09-16. Archived 2009-09-18.
- ^ a b c Millman, Jennifer. "Taconic Mom Drank But Was No Drunk: Hubby Changes Story." NBC New York, 2009-11-07.
- ^ a b O'Connor, Anahad and Schweber, Nate. "Driver Said to Have Used Marijuana Regularly." The New York Times, 2009-11-06.
- ^ a b Lysiak, Matthew. "Family of Victims in Deadly Taconic crash Support Gov. Paterson's Plan to Toughen DWI Laws." New York Daily News, 2009-08-14. Accessed 2009-09-16. Archived 2009-09-18.
- ^ Lysiak, Matthew and Siemaszko, Corky. "Death Driver Diane Schuler Was Sober in McDonald's Before Crash, Says Family Investigator." New York Daily News, 2009-11-19.
- ^ Melas, Chloe. "Family: No Signs of Long-Term Drinking in Driver in Fatal Crash." CNN, 2009-09-01.
- ^ a b "Autopsy: Wrong-Way Crash Driver Not an Alcoholic." New York Post, 2009-09-02.
- ^ a b Amon, Michael. "Expert: Diane Schuler Should Have Had Hair Drug Test." Newsday, 2009-09-01.
- ^ a b Crowley, Kieran and Ginger Adams Otis. "Crash Ma Was a Toker." New York Post, 2009-08-17.
- ^ a b Lam, C., Schuler's husband meets again with State Police, New York Newsday, August 14, 2009.
- ^ New York Times Topics: Diane Schuler,The New York Times, 2009-08-06.
- ^ Amon, Michael. "Authorities: Autopsy Offers No Explanation for Crash." Newsday, 2009-07-28.
- ^ Lysiak, Matthew, et al."Families Fight over Planned HBO Film of Taconic Death Driver Diane Schuler on Anniversary of Tragedy." New York Daily News, 2010-07-27.
- ^ a b c Celizic, Mike. "Family of Wrong-Way Driver’s Victims Fires Back." MSNBC, 2009-09-04.
- ^ Zmudzien, Redmond (4 August 2011). "Bastardi Jr. Says HBO Documentary was a "Farce"". The Tarrytown Daily Voice.
- ^ a b Ali, Aman. "Victims' Families Angered by Schuler Claims." The Journal News (Lower Hudson), 2009-10-29.
- ^ Ferrete, Candice. "Taconic Tragedy: Schuler Was Going 85 MPH in Wrong Direction, Final Police Report Says." The Journal News (Lower Hudson), 2010-06-29.
- ^ "No Charges in Fatal Wrong-way Crash." CBS News, 2009-08-18.
- ^ Aiello, Tony. "Challenger Pokes Holes In Westchester DA's Record[permanent dead link] WCBS, 2009-10-09.
- ^ Bandler, Jonathan. "DiFiore Pleased with Easy Win, Schorr Proud of Campaign." The Journal News (Lower Hudson), 2009-11-05.
- ^ Ali, Aman. "Updated: Victims' Family Wants DA to Investigate Schuler Case." The Journal News (Lower Hudson), 2009-11-01.
- ^ Amon, Michael. "Court May Name Executor of Diane Schuler's Estate." Newsday, 2009-10-22.
- ^ Ali, Aman. "Judge to Appoint Administrator for Diane Schuler’s Estate." The Journal News (Lower Hudson), 2009-11-18.
- ^ Zraick, Karen. "Suit Filed in Wrong-Way Crash That Killed 8 on Taconic." The New York Times, 2009-12-10.
- ^ a b Michelin, Robert (27 July 2011). "Mother of Girls in Taconic Accident Files Suit". The Tarrytown Daily Voice. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
- ^ Michelin, Robert (26 July 2011). "Husband of Wrong Way Driver Sues State, In-Laws". The Briarcliff Daily Voice.
- ^ Blain, Glenn. "GOP Senator Fuschillo Demands Action, Tougher Laws for Drunken Driving: 'Leandra's Law.'" New York Daily News, 2009-10-31.
- ^ Robinson, Cheryl. "New York Toughens Drunken Driving Law." CNN, 2009-11-19.
- ^ "Dr. Phil.com - Shows - Drunk Driving Moms". drphil.com. 30 September 2009.
- ^ Feldman, Emily. "Oprah Challenges Taconic Crash Investigator on Show." NBC New York, 2009-10-28.
- ^ Melillo, Amanda. "Taken from the Taconic." New York Post, 2009-11-06.
- ^ Crowley, Kieran. "Taconic Van-Wreck Kin Blast Law & Order Copy Episode." New York Post, 2009-10-20.
- ^ HBO, There's something wrong with Aunt Diane - Interview with Liz Garbus
- ^ Time - Health & Family, I'll see you again, Alexandra Sifferlin, May 12, 2013.
- ISBN 9781501111679.
- ^ "Home - Hance Family Foundation". Hance Family Foundation.
External links
- Police report
- Autopsy Report of Diane Schuler
- Anatomy of a Tragic Accident Overhead photos of the crash scene, and route map (The New York Times)
- Map of accident Road map of crash location (maps.google.com)