Ocean City Maryland beach hummer accident

[tower]

Gosh,

In some ways, I agree with Vistomper and wish we could lock this thread. It can be emotionally taxing. On the other hand, I find myself bristling at hearing that Linda was censored/muted on another site. (Apparently freedom of speech and the press only apply to those with whom that moderator agrees.) So I wouldn’t want to prevent Hummoron from writing in, I just hope that his judgment continues to improve. Perhaps he might refrain from judging at all.

I’m not interested in vilifying the Onstar operator, the 911 operator or any of the rangers, at least not until all the facts become clear. But as Paragon states, Emergency Service’s protocols necessarily must be evaluated on an ongoing basis if they are to remain current. It is very sad when a tragedy and subsequent lawsuit are the required impetus to effect this reevaluation. When departments stay current of their own accord, tragedies are minimized in severity and number. When departments do otherwise, unfortunately, this is frequently the mechanism that forces the change.

I find this type of dialogue to be very healthy. I would be very surprised if certain involved authorities are not watching the exchange on this site closely. The more we can shed light on what happened, the better. In secrecy, things only fester and worsen.

t~

[KenP]

Just wondering, what do the Rangers have to do between 9:30pm and 8am? Sure, in the morning people are coming through, but what about in the middle of the night. I think, if nothing else, curiosity would get me out there driving along the beach checking things out. What were they doing?

[crystalstarkey]

This is the cousin of adam and the step sister of jen. adam was like a big brother to me. me, jen and him were together every weekend. i know everything there is to know about both of them. Im glad that i wasnt with them, i was sopposed to hang out with them that weekend. but im sure if it was just me adam and jen would both be just as upset as me. i agree with everything that everyone has said. thank you. it means alot. i cant explain how mad and upset it makes me to hear what happend with everything. the coordinates, the rangers not searching long enough... i could go on and on. I just wanted to thank you all for everything.

[tower]

And we all want to express how sorry we are for your loss.

[ROX]

Originally posted by crystalstarkey:
This is the cousin of adam and the step sister of jen....I just wanted to thank you all for everything.

Crystal. Linda. My heart goes out to you both.
Please post new facts as they become available. You'll have our attention.

[beachinJeeper]

If I may, and as a regular on the site mentioned previously, it should be known that many of us there are on the beach 2-3 days at a time fishing, maybe 8 months out of the year, so maybe we know the Island and it's rangers better than alot of people.

Couple things come to mind about the accident, and the roll, as close as I can logically figure is, it was dark, probably not driving in the water but along the adjacent beach, can't say how fast he may have been driving, but from experience, probably faster than the 25mph limit. Along the beach's edge, the tides can create "drop-offs" some I have seen 3' and greater, so, scenerio in my mind would be, travelling slighty (for the sake of argument) more than the posted speed, at night, came upon an "edge" which was either seen too late or not at all, and the vehicle rolled.

What bothers me the most though is the talk about the rangers, and maybe changes need to be made, but shouldn't effect those of us who know the rules and follow them, which may just happen, and thus because of the "stupidity" of the minority, the majority may end up getting screwed. The rangers have about 18 miles of legal ORV area, guess some of which may be 1/2 mile wide or more (not sure), to keep an eye out on, so a vehicle in an emergency situation, it could be assumed by some of the "facts" presented, should have had an ORV permit, known the rules and therefore on the ORV zone. Now, driving from the ORV entrance down to the Virginia line itself is about a half hours drive, then, who nows how much time could be spent driving the reckognized crossovers that take one west toward the bay, but figure one could take another half hour looking in each of theses areas,so I could see one spending almost 4 hours or more searching the ORV area alone. So, maybe, that is where the search was done. Heard quite a few times where vehicles were in an emergincy situations, but by the time the rangers arrived, either others helped them, or managed on their own to get out of, with no call to the rangers, so rangers have looked for vehicles in an emergency situation, of course finding nothing.

Also, off the ORV, and nothing exactly indicated it was on the ORV, there are other access areas toward the bayside, where vehicles are permitted, so maybe those areas another hour or two search. So, a thorough search of allowed vehicle access may take upwards of 5-6 hours or more to accomplish.

Also, the area of the accident was in the area of the rangers station, amazingly enough, where if one had walked west away from the ocean, maybe a five or ten minute walk, help would have been there, so, maybe another reason to focus on the ORV area.

Now can say first hand seen some "inexperiencd" drivers on the ORV when schools get out, driving fast (too fast), doing doughnuts and flat out wrecklessly driving, seen some rollers, but very few in the years there, plenty of burried to the frames, broken axles and blown engines.

Me, don't know for a fact lawsuits filed, it wouldn't surprise me, one can sue for just about anything in this here good ol' US of A, and though, yes a tragic accident, would hate for the Park Service to be blamed for many driver errors that might have occirred that night. Believe it or not, they do their jobs, and feel they do them well,and are more than willing to go above and beyond their "stated duties". But to blame them, when, the driver took his vehicle in a "no vehicles permitted" area, which is clearly signed (and nobody has said whether he had a valid permit or not at this point), probably exceeding the posted speed, and even if not drinking, so will assume they were not, if you are not familiar with the beach, surprises can be just ahead of you, and before you realize it, best case, you are stuck to the frame, or, as in this case, a tragic accident occurs.

I am sorry for the loss of lives, and feel for the families involved, and my prayers are with them, but we here in America must begin to place blame where it belongs, on the individuals, and not looking to pin the blame on others.

Just my two cents worth as an AI regular, so those that feel the need, go ahead and bash away, I am a big boy, I can take it.

Me, nothing against Hummers or the owners, but.

Have Jeep will travel

[Hummers_Suck]

First of all I'd like to say it a shame what happened to these two young people. This should of never happened, but when you don't follow the rules you put yourself and others at risk.

I am a former employee of Assateague during my college days. The rangers that work there are good people and are always willing to help people and go above and beyond what they are asked.

Are the Rangers at fault for Adam's stupidity? Are they at fault he was driving a vehicle that wasn't designed for high rates of speed? Should he have been in an area that was off limits?

I feel like the coast guard in OC should have been involved with a helicopter or such. I'm not sure if it was.

[PARAGON]

Shaggy,

I think maybe you are not seeing the point trying to be made by most here. The Rangers did not do enough. That's indisputable because 2 people are dead that might otherwise would not have been. That's not to say that the individual Rangers are to blame, I don't think anyone here knows enough to state that. The Rangers were the last component of this emergency operation and failed to find them, it's that simple. It's the why that has most here concerned.

Everyone here does know that the driver likely caused his accident and put he and his passenger in the precarious situation. Bad judgement happens every day and sometimes results in this type of accident and we rely on emergency services to provide help in those situations. There was a breakdown here. The vehicle's coordinates were given but not used and there was no attempt to re-connect with the vehicle using the Onstar system. The Rangers, quite frankly, should not have been searching the entire island to begin with. They should have first zeroed in on the coordinates provided to the 911 operator but the Ranger that took the call from the 911 operator did not take the coordinates down and use them.

Maybe some of you don't understand about Onstar and that that is part of the reason for our concern. We pay a fee to have this Onstar service for emergency situations like what transpired on that island and depend upon that system and the subsequent emergency services because Onstar can GPS locate our vehicle in the event of such an emergency. This valuable tool was ignored altogether in this situation.

[beachinJeeper]

You are right, don't know anything about OnStar, besides the radio commercials I hear, and don't use any of the GPS tools out there, and don't believe so don't own a cell phone, so I would be the first to admit, may be that I am technologically challenged.

Don't know if this will work or not, but also with MapQuest (and maybe not a real good indicator) and the coordinates, the location given appears to turn up locations from west of Berlin to in the ocean. Now, if this is the best the coordinates could give for a location (and heard something about seconds not given ?) then the search area is very large. Sounds like maybe the rangers just got a general area, since there are no "intersections or street names" there may have led to some confusion of the where abouts, other than the only thing OnSTar apparently stated was Assateague Island, but still leaves a vast search area, and all I was trying to state was that, in vehicle allowed areas alone, a search could take upwards of 6 hours or more.

That said, maybe the driver had bad judgement, and maybe, in assuming the emergency was in an area where vehicle access was permitted, was bad judgement by the rangers (not that I feel this should be construed as not doing their jobs, or cause for a lawsuit against them), but feel if one was familiar with Assateaque Island (and there is the State Park Area (about 680 acres, and some in the water, but less than 5% of the portion of Assateague situated in the state of Maryland) and Federal Area, (plus the Virginia portion, where no vehicles are allowed)), one may see searching allowed areas could take quite some time, and searching the entire Park complex would indeed be time consuming and challeging since there are many places, some in wooded areas others in no vehicles permitted area that may take a full day or more to search every place a vehicle might have travelled. These facts might show, how, even though the rangers were the last components, may have failed them. Also like stated, they have searched the Island before for vehicles in emergency situations, and found nothing, because the "emergency" was rectified, but the owner of vehicle felt no need to call a let those looking, trying to help, know all was okay. So, they searched the permitted areas, and maybe felt, well, another one got itself out of trouble, so at the time, given past experiences, felt all was okay, only to find out, like all of us, the vehicle did not make it's way out.

Worst thing of the entire situation, the entire truth may never be known, and thus, perfect corrective action plans, from OnStar, Sherrifs and Rangers will never be able to be structured and therefore implemented, and best case scenerio, is what minor changes, given the limited details to the facts, may improve emergency response, but the best plan is to have one know the rules, be aware of conditions, and they can change dramtically, and quickly, and be cautious and aware that for the most Assateague is a wilderness area, maybe not huge, but big enough.

[h2co-pilot]

I will first off admit that I have limited knowledge on GPS and Onstar function. I am concerned because shortly I will be 4 wheeling in a designated park that has limited cellphone reception, but I am sure they have rescue plans and procedures.

Will someone please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that the problem lies with the category of the Onstar call.

In the 911 tapes that Paragon intelligently posted, the Onstar rep said the button was pressed. But there was screaming heard and no attempt to speak to the rep. The airbags did not deploy then? Or did they deploy and place the call to Onstar? Maybe the airbags placed the call or signal and it was misinterpreted as a less emergent call if it was pressed. Then so the rep would have put a more emergent status which would demand further rescue attempt other than the rangers or police helping another vehicle in the area. The word Hummer was indicated on the tape however. Does anyone know about that? I am confusing myself.

I believe, as most of you do, that those in police and rescue are there for because they want to be and are very diligent and courageous people and I do not want to jump on them because it was a difficult situation.

And Hummers_Suck, the post is well taken but your forum name is needlessly negative.

[h2co-pilot]

And for record, I am not worried about my upcoming trip ( pretty dern syked ) because I am going with super-cool and competent individuals. I was just giving others a "for instance situation" on why we are interested in this matter

[Hummoron]

First of all let me say that some of my earlier comments were inflammatory and that discussions about hummers off-topic. I allowed myself to get riled up by other people's comments who seemed to think that as a hummer driver, they should be going in more dangerous and otherwise off-limit areas. As a result, I took the extreme opposite position.

Having said that, I think that Shaggy as wonderfully expressed my more true (and level) sentiments on this topic. His firsthand knowledge of both the area and rangers is very insightful. Ruining one or more ranger's life (have some have expressed) over the action's of one person who was clearly breaking the rules and taking several unnecessary life risks on their own would be an injustice. More likely is that the rules will be changed for all ORVs and everyone will be punished.

The rangers searched the area as the past experience would have guided them to do. People are also assuming that the rangers had access to GPS, but that is also speculation (just as I speculated that the driver also had a GPS display).

In the transcripts that I've read, I have never seen where the 911 operator even suggested they had latitude longitude coordinates, just "coordinates". Maybe OnStar should have called the Park directly instead of going through an intermediary.

For those of you paying money for OnStar and perceive this to be an infallible safety net, well, I think this incident shows that it is not.

There are many gaps in the story. Initially I heard that the airbags were not deployed and then a month later, that they were. I don't understand how there could be any confusion over that given the OnStar commercials that I've seen.

After the hummer was recovered, the front windshield and driver's side door were both missing. The back of the hummer was bent in like a V. I am assuming that those damages were done during the roll. Given how many people drive on the beach (and some in 4x4 Vans), I just have a hard time imagining what natural conditions could have existed that would have caused a hummer of all vehicles to roll and suffer that much damage. Hence the speculation that the driver was acting in a way that was way beyond normal beach driving.

I understand that the inside cab of the hummer was also greatly water damaged, suggesting that it had been in deep water for a lengthy amount of time. If the vehicle ended in the ocean in or beyond the breakers as a result of the accident, I am also not surprised that the rangers would have missed it, even if they had driven right by it. In my naivety, I would be shining my spotlight (it was dark, after all) from the water's edge to the dunes. But, I am speculating.

If the rangers did a full out search and rescue for every call they get to the level that would have been necessary in this case, well, who is going to pay for it (I'm imagining at least one, if not several, helicopters and multiple trucks in the search)? As a taxpayer, I certainly don't. That may sound cold, but those searches cost lots of money quickly. The $70/year entrance fee certainly doesn't cover it either. The coast guard getting a call about a boat in distress is a much more obvious need of a full search than someone stuck in the sand (which is where the ORV should have been, in the sand). Given that others don't cancel a search after being "rescued" makes this even more problematic.

I've gone out on the beach in the winter and didn't have OnStar or a cellphone. I was fully aware that if I even got stuck, no one would be the wiser until the next day when I didn't return and I would be responsible for getting my own self out. As a result, I tended to drive more carefully (not that I still didn't do some stupid things). You take risks and accept the consequences. Adam might have been perfectly fine with that.

I also don't know the facts and could be completely off-base (about the accident itself).

And despite one person's claim, I am not against commercialism and people should be able to spend their money on better things. That doesn't mean we can do anythng we want. Just because I can afford a TeraWatt Bass Thumper for my car, doesn't mean I should be playing it all full blast while next to other people. With owning something also comes responsibility.

[KenP]

For lack of a better term I will use "sand cliffs". These often form along the beach in that area as the tide receeds. Adam could have been driving at a moderate speed and caught the edge of one, gotten scared and jerked the wheel. Very easily and rolling into the surf. That would absolve him of driving crazy, not of making a bed decision and going where it was not legal.

I still have a hard time understanding OnStar and the Dispatcher's level of concern. Remember, there was a hysterical woman screaming in the background. Was that relayed to the Rangers?
I like Marcmedics response best: "You bet your ass I'd be canned if I pulled anything like that. What they did went way past negligence, and there is no way you can say otherwise. They were lazy, plain and simple. Just becuase Adam was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, and possibly being careless does not free emergency responders from performing their duties. Maybe the next time a drunk plows into a loaded minivan I'll just leave him there since he was stupid...I think not. The Park Rangers ****ed up, plain and simple, and in the end they'll pay the price with their jobs and a lawsuit. When you call off a search and the people die of exposure because you were lazy...you pay."

However, I just want to know exactly what happened. I hope the HUMMER's black box was not damaged. That will be telling.

[Hummoron]

That would absolve him of driving crazy, not of making a bed decision and going where it was not legal.

Regardless of the first two, he was still driving in a non-vehicle area. He should not have been where he was. Had he been, the initial search may have been much more successful.

Do the hummers have black boxes to record the driver?! That could really shed a lot of light onto this.

[beachinJeeper]

Personally, don't feel this is a Hummer vs. Jeep, or any other off roader, but individuals choose what they want to drive, me a Jeep, others Hummers, which is all and good, my problem is, and I would hope to feel the same way if it was a Jeep, where should one start looking?

And to quote:

"Just becuase Adam was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, and possibly being careless does not free emergency responders from performing their duties."

Maybe they DID PERFORM their duties, looking where they SHOULD have been looking, I don't know, see this is all BS, and maybe getting a little PO'd, and for the recird, have no connection personally with the rangers, other than fishing, but check the layout of AI, and the regulations, and where would you look?

Why can it not be a tragic accident, that it was, and not say he or she, shoulda, coulda done this? As far as I can tell, the rangers did look, and did not know the Hummer was on a no vehicle permitted area. They searched the most likely place, and I be damned, but those men and women do their jobs, and more, and I myself, thank them, though in some eyes, they failed.

[DRTYFN]

Originally posted by shaggy:

Could you do everyone a favor and change your screen name? We've already got a Shaggy, and it's just too weird seeing intelligent coherent posts with that name over them. It's like some kind of Bizarro world or Twilight Zone.

Thanks in advance.

[ShaggyX]

Originally posted by DRTYFN:
Could you do everyone a favor and change your screen name? We've already got a Shaggy, and it's just too weird seeing intelligent coherent posts with that name over them. It's like some kind of Bizarro world or Twilight Zone.

Thanks in advance.

Yeah...what he said.

[beachinJeeper]

I'd like to, but everyone knows me as shaggy (nickname since high school many a years ago), and so it is, and thanks, I think, for the compliment about intelligent posts, but the name is what it is, go to stripers on line, or pier and surf, same name same feelings, I don't hide and try where ever, to keep my name, so those who like or dislike know, I have my thoughts and try not to hide behind anything.

Besides, "It's a Jeep thing", and I am comfortable with it.

[Marcmedic]

Just because someone made a mistake does not justify negligence on the part of a public servant/emergency responder. Let's say you're at a pool and choose to ignore the sign that says no diving in the shallow end of the pool. You dive in and knock yourself out. Is the lifeguard justified in just sitting there and letting you drown because you disobeyed the sign??? The Park Rangers has a duty to act and their actions deviated from an accepted standard for emergency responders. You bet your ass they should lose their jobs. They're an disgrace to public saftey workers everywhere. What happens when you set your house on fire and the fire department just sits outside and watches it burn because you left the oven on. Or when the paramedics refuse to take you to the hospital becuase you shouldn't have been running with scissors. Where does your line of thinking draw the line? There is no way you can justify their lack of action on this, and your attemts to do so just show your ignorance in this type of situation.

[beachinJeeper]

Okay, and imagine there is diving allowed in certain areas, and none in others, and imagine the pool is 10,000 acres or more, where would you start looking? Like I have said, I spend a lot of time on AI, and not blaming Adam or Jenn because they were in Hummers, just trying to let those who are not familiar with AI, the area of search that may have or not have been done. I don't know where they actually looked, just saying, the search in best of conditions, during daylight could have taken hours, and believe me, I feel as bad as anyone, because as much time as I spend out there, well, I realize if not cautious, it could be my last. Mistake were made, fact, but don't put more blame on x, y or z.

Have Jeep will travel