In the News

It is a story filled with heartbreak. Last week a woman, Diane Schuler, with a minivan filled with kids, drove the wrong way on a New York parkway and crashed headlong into another car. She died, as did her three young nieces, ages 8, 7 and 5, as well as her two-year-old daughter. Three men in the vehicle she hit also died. Her son was critically injured and a couple in another car was also hurt.

A horrible accident that seemed inexplicable. She had called her brother to say she was disoriented and was having trouble seeing. He told her to pull over and he would come and get her. But she drove on, entering a highway on an exit ramp and driving fast into the traffic until the horrible crash.

How had this happened? Was she sick? Suicidal? What could possess a woman with a car full of children to drive so erratically? Why did she not simply stop and wait if she was having so much trouble?

Medical tests have provided the answers. Diane Schuler was drunk and she was high. She had guzzled vodka and smoked pot. She had knocked back the equivalent of 10 shots of 80-proof liquor and smoked marijuana possibly only 15 minutes before the crash. There was a broken bottle of Absolut in the car. She may even have been drinking and smoking as she drove.