Wrong-way driver in N.Y. crash was drunk
Police say Diane Schuler's blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit and that she had smoked marijuana shortly before the crash on the Taconic State Parkway that killed 8.
Associated Press
8:32 PM PDT, August 4, 2009
Garden City, N.Y. -- A mother who drove the wrong way on an expressway, triggering a three-car crash that killed eight people, had been drinking vodka and smoking marijuana and had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, police said Tuesday.
Diane Schuler, 36, who died along with her 2-year-old daughter and three nieces in her red minivan, had more than 10 drinks of alcohol in her system and a high level of the main ingredient in marijuana, authorities said. A broken 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found in her wrecked minivan, police said.
The revelations from the autopsy helped explain how the woman her family called "an accomplished working mother who always put her children before any other priorities" wound up driving the wrong way for nearly two miles on the Taconic State Parkway on July 26. She slammed into an SUV and careened into another car.
Three men in the SUV also died in the accident about 35 miles northwest of New York City. Schuler's 5-year-old son survived.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-crash5-2009aug05,0,7874815.story
Police say Diane Schuler's blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit and that she had smoked marijuana shortly before the crash on the Taconic State Parkway that killed 8.
Associated Press
8:32 PM PDT, August 4, 2009
Garden City, N.Y. -- A mother who drove the wrong way on an expressway, triggering a three-car crash that killed eight people, had been drinking vodka and smoking marijuana and had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, police said Tuesday.
Diane Schuler, 36, who died along with her 2-year-old daughter and three nieces in her red minivan, had more than 10 drinks of alcohol in her system and a high level of the main ingredient in marijuana, authorities said. A broken 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found in her wrecked minivan, police said.
The revelations from the autopsy helped explain how the woman her family called "an accomplished working mother who always put her children before any other priorities" wound up driving the wrong way for nearly two miles on the Taconic State Parkway on July 26. She slammed into an SUV and careened into another car.
Three men in the SUV also died in the accident about 35 miles northwest of New York City. Schuler's 5-year-old son survived.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-crash5-2009aug05,0,7874815.story
