After more than five years of constant writing about crashes and the damage they did to families, I took a hiatus to spend more time with mine. But couldn’t stay away. I kept coming across articles involving one senseless death after another. It was time to get back to work. This is one of the tragedies I came across during the time I spent away from The Car Crash Detective. As is too often the case, it involves the loss of an entire family due to the mindlessness of a fellow human being. These are their stories.
What happened to the Thompson family?
Timmy Thomson, 51, his wife Karen, 50, and their daughter, Tessa, 10, died the night of March 17, 2019 in Dayton, Ohio. Karen was a special education teacher at Taft Elementary in the Cincinnati Public School District while Tessa was a student at St. Susanna School. The family was on a return trip from visiting Karen’s family in the northern part of the state. They drove a Toyota Camry.
The family was southbound on I-75 at approximately 8:10 PM when hit head-on in the center lane by Abby Michaels, 21, who was northbound in the southbound lane in a white Kia sedan. She had apparently crossed the median, made a U-turn, and headed the wrong way in the center lane for approximately 10 seconds before hitting the Thomson vehicle. Timmy and his daughter died at the scene while Karen passed away some time later at a local hospital. Abby survived with serious but stable injuries.
What led Abby to drive the wrong way that night?
Per police reports, Abby was returning from a St. Patrick’s Day celebration she’d attended earlier in the day. She was dressed in a St. Patrick’s Day shirt, wore a number of plastic shamrock necklaces, and her cheek was covered in a temporary tattoo of a beer mug. The most significant details, however, included a Fireball whisky cup in her bag and beer flowing from her mouth when first responders attempted to get her to breathe after the crash. Additionally, Abby’s husband from June 2018, Kyle Pastorelle, had apparently filed for divorce from Abby on March 15, 2019, two days before the crash.
How could these deaths have been prevented?
None of these deaths had to occur that night. They were completely preventable. Had Abby handed over the keys to a friend, called a cab, or spent $20 for a car hire via Uber, Lyft, or a similar service, an entire family would not have perished that night. Beyond that, free cab rides were available that night provided by Dayton and Montgomery County to encourage people to make safe driving decisions on a day known for alcoholic consumption. None of this was necessary.
Is it possible her recent divorce proceedings may have affected her mental and emotional state? Absolutely. Her drinking was not the problem; we celebrate and grieve in different ways. The problem was her decision to drive despite having drunk. This split second decision cost three people their lives–three people who had no connection to her besides the misfortune of being in her path that night.
Alcohol is a death sentence when paired with an auto
I’ve written about the dangers of alcohol before; this isn’t the first fatal crash I’ve profiled on The Car Crash Detective, and it unfortunately is unlikely to be the last. This story repeats itself thousands of times a year in the United States and millions of times a year around the globe. The research shows that there is no safe amount of alcohol you can consume before you drive. This is why alcohol limits are so much lower in most European countries than they are in the United States; the knowledge is spreading that fatal crashes and impaired driving can and do occur at much lower levels of intoxication than previously thought.
A later report stated Abby was legally intoxicated with a BAC post crash of .099, slightly higher than the Ohio legal limit of .08. However, .08 was already far too much alcohol to consume before driving a multi-ton vehicle. Half of that would have been too much. There is no safe limit above zero.
Best practices aren’t a mystery. They save lives. Please learn them and share them. Don’t make Abby’s mistake.
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