The 2009 Taconic State Parkway crash was a traffic collision that occurred shortly after 1:30 PM on Sunday, July 26, 2009, on the Taconic State Parkway near Briarcliff Manor, New York. Eight people were killed when a minivan, after travelling 1.7 miles in the wrong direction on the parkway, collided head-on with an oncoming SUV. The deaths included the minivan's driver, 36-year-old Diane Schuler; Schuler's daughter and three nieces; and the SUV's three passengers. The crash was the worst fatal motor vehicle accident in Westchester County, New York since a 1934 bus accident in Ossining claimed twenty lives.
The ensuing investigation into the crash's cause received nationwide attention. Although a toxicology report stated that Schuler was heavily intoxicated with both alcohol and marijuana at the time of the crash, Schuler's husband Daniel Schuler has consistently denied that Schuler abused drugs or alcohol and has made multiple media appearances to defend his wife and call for further investigation into other possible medical causes for her erratic driving.
Day of accident
At approximately 9:30 AM on Sunday, July 26, 2009, 36-year-old Diane Schuler left the Hunter Lake Campground in Parksville, New York in a red 2003 Ford Windstar. Riding with Schuler were her 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter, and her brother's three daughters (ages 8, 7 and 5). Her husband Daniel Schuler left the campground at the same time in a separate vehicle. A co-owner of the campground later said that Diane Schuler appeared sober when she departed.
On the way to West Babylon, Schuler stopped at a McDonald's fast food restaurant and a gas station in Liberty, New York. While at the gas station, she attempted to buy over-the-counter pain-relief medication, but the store did not sell any.
Schuler left Liberty just after 11 AM travelling along Route 17 and Interstate 87, entering the Ramapo service area, and crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge heading east. Witnesses later reported seeing a red minivan driving aggressively on Route 17 and Interstate 87, including aggressively tailgating, flashing headlights, honking the horn, and straddling two lanes. At 11:37 AM, Schuler called Warren Hance, her brother and the father of the three nieces in Schuler's car. She reportedly told Hance they were being delayed by traffic. According to a police report, Schuler was seen at approximately 11:45 by the side of the road with her hands on her knees, as if vomiting; she was seen again in the same position a short time later, north of the Ramapo rest stop.
At about 1 PM, another call was made to Hance from Schuler's cell phone. During this call, one of Schuler's nieces reportedly told her father that Schuler was having trouble seeing and speaking clearly. Schuler then talked to Hance herself and said she was disoriented and couldn't see clearly. Police believe 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. A motorist later found Schuler's cell phone by the side of the road near the toll lanes of the Tappan Zee Bridge.
At 1:33pm, two drivers called 911 after noticing Schuler's van edging onto the northbound exit ramp of the Taconic State Parkway near Briarcliff Manor, New York, New York. The end of the exit ramp, at the intersection with Pleasantville Road, is marked with two signs reading Do Not Enter and two One Way . The exit ramp itself is unmarked. Within the next minute, four more 911 calls were placed by motorists who reported a car travelling the wrong way down the parkway.
Schuler's van traveled south for 1.7 miles in the parkway's northbound passing lane before colliding head-on, at approximately 1:35 PM, with a 2004 Chevrolet TrailBlazer. The TrailBlazer then struck a 2002 Chevrolet Tracker. Schuler, her daughter, and two of her nieces were killed in the crash, along with the TrailBlazer's driver and two passengers. The two occupants of the Tracker suffered only minor injuries. Schuler's remaining niece and her son were taken to area hospitals, where her niece was pronounced dead later that day; her 5-year-old son Bryan survived his injuries, the sole passenger of Schuler's vehicle to survive. Bryan Schuler suffered broken bones and severe head trauma, and remained hospitalized until returning home in early October.
Contested intoxication levels
The investigation of the collision drew nationwide attention, as Diane Schuler's family battled the conclusion that Schuler was heavily intoxicated at the time of the crash.
A toxicology report released on August 4 by Westchester County medical examiners found that Schuler had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19, with approximately six grams of alcohol in her stomach that had not yet been absorbed into her blood. The legal BAC limit is 0.08. The report also said she had "high levels" of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in her system and had smoked marijuana as late as 15 minutes prior to the collision.
Diane Schuler's husband, Daniel Schuler, and his attorney Dominic Barbara consistently denied that Diane Schuler ever drank to excess or could have been drunk while driving that day. Daniel Schuler eventually admitted that he and his wife had been drinking during the weekend, but denied that Diane had anything to drink in the day preceding the crash. The campground co-owner, who claimed to know the Schulers well and saw them off at approximately 9 AM that morning, said that Schuler appeared sober when she left; the gas station employee whom Schuler asked for Tylenol around 11 AM also said he " for a fact she wasn't drunk when she came into the station." According to Tom Ruskin, an investigator hired by Daniel Schuler, no McDonald's employees saw any signs of intoxication in Diane Schuler although she engaged in extended conversation there while ordering food.
Other Schuler relatives have also disputed that Diane Schuler was known to drink heavily or irresponsibly. Ruskin told reporters in September that he had interviewed over fifty people who knew Diane, none of whom had ever seen her in a drunk state. Ruskin also pointed to autopsy results that showed an absence of organ damage often found in alcoholics, although an uninvolved medical examiner said such results do not rule out alcoholism.
Daniel Schuler told investigators that his wife smoked marijuana occasionally, and the family told People magazine that she used it to relieve insomnia. Although Daniel Schuler is an officer in the Public Security Unit of the Nassau County Police Department, he was not required to report his wife's drug use because he is a civilian. Evidence is inconclusive that marijuana use has a substantially impairing effect on drivers. In November, it was reported that Diane Schuler's sister-in-law had made a statement to police that Diane Schuler smoked marijuana on a regular basis.
Schuler and Barbara publicly attributed Schuler's erratic driving to a medical issue, such as a stroke. According to Barbara, Diane Schuler suffered from diabetes; Barbara has also mentioned an abscess that had persisted in her mouth for seven weeks before her death, and a lump in her leg that he said "might have been an embolism." The results of an autopsy conducted by a Westchester County medical examiner one day after the accident found that Schuler had not suffered a stroke, aneurysm or heart attack. Before the toxicology report was issued, New York State Police investigators told reporters that Schuler's behavior reminded them of similar accidents involving complications from diabetes.
In September, New York's top forensic pathologist said that a hair test should have been done to determine Diane Schuler's drug history. Daniel Schuler and his lawyer announced plans to exhume the body to perform the hair test and other examinations; experts said this was unlikely to produce any new information of value. Schuler also intends to re-test the fluid samples taken during the autopsy. The Westchester County medical examiner's office, which performed the autopsy, said that the degradation of the fluids over time is likely to result in lowered alcohol and THC readings; however, several toxicology experts said the results should be similar to the previous test if the fluid samples have been properly stored. On November 7, Ruskin announced that the Schuler family had raised the money to retest Schuler's tissue samples, and that the retesting would take place soon.
Daniel Schuler's persistence in disputing his wife's intoxication has been condemned by family members of the three men in the car Schuler collided with, all of whom were killed in the accident: 81-year-old Michael Bastardi, his son 49-year-old Guy Bastardi, and their friend, 74-year-old Dan Longo. When Schuler appeared on CNN's Larry King Live in September to demand more testing of his wife's remains, Longo's brother Joseph issued a statement saying in part, "I want Daniel Schuler to know that he keeps inflicting more pain on all concerned once again going to the media to try and paint a picture of a perfect wife and mother."
Michael Bastardi's daughters appeared with their lawyer on The Today Show , where they questioned Daniel Schuler's culpability in enabling his wife's drug and alcohol use and called for him to undergo drug testing himself. "It makes me angry that he keeps denying it," Nicotina said. "Every time he does it, he brings it back for us. I just wish that he would just admit that she was drunk, maybe if he knows what happened that morning, if they argued or anything, that would be the truth. He
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