Man Leaves The Scene Of Dangerous Crash | Accident Investigator | Real Responders

police find the body of a man lying in a ditch 60 feet from the wreckage of his car and a few pieces of plastic tell investigators what happened I've got a failed to remain here and I need to investigate this further then in Maryland the driver of a pickup truck turns a holiday celebration into tragedy for a grieving family surviving the wreck he seems to simply vanish into thin air still has the potential to kill again and in New Jersey a young girl is killed crossing the street can her remains tell investigators who dealt the fatal blow every year violent collisions killed 40,000 Americans and injure another 3 million but there is no such thing as an accident every collision has the story as unique as the people involved rusty Haight is a leading authority on accident reconstruction he trains investigators around the world to read the clues and solve the mysteries accident investigation is one of the more challenging assignments in police work there's not a lot of folks that will stay with it for very long and there's a good reason for that these dedicated professionals can be in the middle of a family celebration of holiday gathering a a birthday party and the next thing you know they're called out to handle a really messy situation on the highway while the rest of us can stay with friends and family these are the folks that have to go out there and pick up the pieces of a tragedy [Music] on the drive home Michael Richards and his wife sandy are still reveling in the glow of a lavish company party thrown to celebrate the holidays and ring in the new year leaving the party late they've left themselves only a few hours to prepare for the arrival of their daughter a two grandchildren early the next morning but as they wind around a bend in the road that our attention shifts to a pair of headlights that blind their viewer there is no time to react and in a heartbeat it's over rescue workers arriving just minutes later worked frantically to free the couple from their car knowing their lives hang in the balance barely clinging to life sandy and Michael are rushed to a nearby hospital rescuers then turn the scene over to Gary Lewis an experienced investigator with one of Maryland's top collision reconstruction units his job is to find out exactly what would cause such a devastating wreck on a road with a posted speed limit of just 30 miles per hour when I arrived at the scene of this wreck I found a pickup truck that was partially off the roadway the front end was off into the woods the back of the truck was still sitting in the westbound lane of the roadway it was evident that the front bumper of the truck at of what we call overridden the front bumper of the car in other words it wasn't a bumper-to-bumper hit but the bump or the truck went over top of the bumper of the car therefore a lot more damage was caused on the car both occupants had been transported from the scene and the driver the truck was nowhere to be found an empty car at a crash scene fills investigators with dread virtually any impact of victim experiences when thrown from the vehicle can produce a fatal head or spinal injury the way the rack happened theoretically somebody could have been ejected from that vehicle so members of fire rescue personnel that arrived on the scene and Police Department personnel checked the surrounding area for several yards back into the woods to see if anybody had been ejected and they come up with nothing Gary Lewis can only assume that the driver of the pickup was able to walk away from the scene but he is certain that the driver is injured most likely suffering from shock so when someone goes into a state of shock their vital organs are starved of oxygen they confused disoriented they can wander off and in a worst-case scenario should they collapse if aid isn't brought to them soon enough they can die because they failed to get enough blood supply to all the internal organs of their body [Music] working crashes almost always means working under the worst conditions nighttime damp wet snow rain you name it these guys are out doing it at night tonight it's a little cold it's a little bit wet there's crashes spread out all over the road and into the forest we're out here in the middle of nowhere we got a missing driver this guy could have walked off to get help could have walked off disoriented and in some injuries set in later and he may not make it out of the forest trying to recreate a crash from bits of debris and wreckage is always a monumental challenge despite that fact Lewis needs to use what evidence remains to find out exactly what happened given the extent of their injuries Lewis knows he may never get the chance to ask the Richards what they saw the wrecks already happened when we get there so we have to deal with from crash to final rest so we had the post crash energy and we need to use that into some type of formula that's gonna tell us what came into that wreck the car had been traveling westbound was hit and redirected back eastbound and then knowing the weights you can calculate what kind of energy it would take to redirect that car back in the other direction a certain distance based on that I obtained an impact speed of the truck at a minimum of 46 miles an hour using detailed measurements and a survey of the damage Lewis determines that the pickup truck was well over the speed limit of 30 miles per hour at impact but evidence ripped into the asphalt has more to tell about the pickups role in the crash McGary got night the weather against you what do you got in this one this pickup truck was traveling down this direction apparently lost it on the curve that came across the center of the road two vehicles impacted back here we have gouge marks in the roads to brake marks coming out to where this car ended up and then the pickup truck rotates through the crash and ends up leaving these scrape marks to its position a final rest back here came over on the wrong side of the rail in the car but looks like we got some to work with good luck to you gougers and scrape marks have clearly put the pickup truck in the wrong lane at the moment of impact but that's only one factor in the crash to determine if this was a criminal act lewis needs to know what would cause the driver to lose control why was there so much damage done to the Richards car and how was anyone able to walk away from a scene of such destruction coming up police begin a desperate search for the missing driver of the pickup and later can two conflicting versions of a fatal crash both be wrong a young girl's tragic death seems beyond explanation a holiday celebration suddenly turns tragic for a middle-aged couple despite the heroic efforts of rescue workers to free them from their car and get them to the hospital there work was in vain Michael Richards is pronounced dead on arrival his wife sandy remains in critical condition inspector Gary Lewis has determined that their car actually went from traveling forward at 30 miles per hour to moving backwards in a fraction of a second unlike the driver of the pickup truck the Richards experienced an almost instant change of direction that produced massive internal injuries it's what police call a fatal Delta V all right Delta V the change of velocity for a given crash is really a way of rating the severity of any car crash we know it takes place over certain fixed period of time what we're defining with the term Delta V or change of speed is how bad the magnitude of that change over that little period of time that really leads us to an understanding of injury for example a car that's moving forward at some speed and it's stopped in the collision and driven backwards has not only an increased change of speed compared to one that simply stops at a crash but also exposes the occupants to a greater potential for injury as the change of speed increases over a short period of time folks get hurt and worse and worse in other words it's not direct impact with metal or glass that does so much damage to the Richards bodies but rather an instantaneous change in direction this sudden shift puts catastrophic force on the heart and other organs massive internal bleeding usually follows and this leads directly to Michael Richards death but the driver of the pickup is not nearly as vulnerable his higher mass and greater speed at the time of collision keep his truck moving forward still the collision of that speed is almost certain to cause multiple injuries and shock the drivers life is also in grave danger with a search on in earnest Lewis gets two crucial pieces of information a witness report seeing the driver flee from the scene just moments after the collision another call to police reports a confrontation with the driver himself look like a got a wreck and I might kill someone look look I gotta go his name is Reggie Dowd and he's not in good shape the co-owner of the truck made a phone call to the police and reported that her boyfriend had come to her house taken her car pretty much by force he threatened her I don't know he was limping though I don't know he just came in here he was limping he said he might have killed someone he took my keys and then he left no she also told the police that he was drunk had been drinking and then he was high in City smoked crack cocaine what we have is a person who's already been involved wrecked in one wreck and killed somebody with a vehicle now he has another vehicle he's back out on the road again it's like a murderer walking away with a murder weapon he still has the weapon he's still in the same condition he was and he still has the potential to kill again in a situation like this it had really helped to know the extent of the driver's injuries does he need medical attention will it be looking for painkillers Kitty mask his injuries when he goes to see a doctor let's see if we can't help out [Music] thanks to the girlfriend we know the drivers hurts question is how bad well we have ways of sorting that out a dummy with a little paint reveals what typically happens to someone in a head-on crash the seatbelts and airbags are gonna work together to protect the head number torso but they do that at the expense of the lower extremities knees and ankles are still gonna be tangled up in the underside of the dash of the steering column look at that ankle an injury like that when you make contact with the floor board or the brake pedal it's gonna hurt if this dummy could talk he'd probably be asking for more than aspirin as police continue to search for the injured Reggie Dowd Gary Lewis returns to his office to examine each vehicles SDM module a vehicle's black box it tells investigators how a car was driven up to five seconds before impact from his analysis at the scene Gary knows the pickup was speeding at the time of the crash he hopes the SDM will explain how it ended up in the wrong lane taking the life of Michael Richards we see that this vehicle was operated at 50 at impact but five seconds prior to that was going 71 miles an hour and the driver was after actually on the brakes for the entire five seconds prior to the crash occurring the visibility wasn't 5 seconds down the road on this particular stretch of road it happened around the curve so he wasn't reacting to the other car he was hitting the brakes to save himself [Music] this drivers operating recklessly without any regard for anybody else's safety or his own when he's that far of the speed limit on that type of roadway this is a critical finding for Gary it concludes that the drivers actions were criminal and the data can be used as evidence in court the local hospital on the lookout for suspicious leg injuries notifies police that Reggie Dowd has shown up in the emergency room unable to endure the searing pain in his ankle he finally comes out of hiding to seek some relief we had information he was going to show up at the hospital and I met him there his left leg was extremely swollen the ankle and the knee were really swollen from injuries he got in this wreck [Music] you really should please his moods were just completely all over the board he'd go from sad to almost crying to Angry ready to fight Reggie you remember would have happened he said that he'd been involved in the wreck said he was driving his truck but knew nothing else about it didn't remember anything else about this wreck but admitted driving and then decided he didn't want to say anything and then the move would go back to anger again he didn't want to talk at all then he would almost say that he was sorry and you'd see the tears about to start but they never came Jerry's in a tough spot here he's got good physical evidence to work from he has information from Reggie's girlfriend that suggests Reggie's conditions impaired but she doesn't see him driving at the time of the crash he's got injuries on Reggie Reggie's injuries are consistent with it with the crash itself in the crash dynamics manatee needs something more so we have driving dynamics we have the data from the reconstruction and the data recorder and that tells us more about the crash can relate that to the injuries but he's looking for that one last bit of evidence to tie Reggie back to this car in this crash suspicions not enough he's gonna need something more one of the first things I thought was fingerprints and then I realized well if it is his car his fingerprints are everywhere and I thought DNA because it's the latest greatest thing even more definitive than fingerprints so I thought perfect I'll get DNA and then I realized well again being his car his DNA is everywhere and then it hit me except for one thing or one place and that is something that only comes out and only exposes itself in a violent wreck the airbags of the vehicle that airbag explodes right in front of your face your DNA is gonna be deposited on it when you hit it whether you want it to or not yours and nobody else's unless there's two people in the car and they both happen to hit that bag that was my best shot I got a search warrant and seized that airbag and eventually got a match with the suspects DNA with all of the information finally in hand Gary can now give a full account of what happened on a dark December night in rural Maryland Reggie Dowd was driving his pickup truck at over 60 miles an hour on a rain-slicked country road losing control on a corner he applies his brakes and drifts into oncoming traffic colliding with a car being driven by sandy Richards she and her husband suffer massive internal injuries when their car is instantly stopped by the impact and hurtled backwards Michael Richards is pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital but his wife sandy miraculously survives and eventually makes a full recovery despite Reggie downs efforts to flee the scene and deny any involvement in the wreck Gary Lewis was able to establish that Dowd was speeding at the time of impact that he was in the wrong lane and that he was ultimately the cause of the crash Dowd alludes charges of driving while intoxicated but indisputable DNA evidence leaves him little choice but to plead guilty to manslaughter by automobile and hit-and-run for Gary this all came together as an application of Technology he used his that scene work to figure out how fast the cars were going and how the people inside the cars moved then he used more technology he used the DNA to figure out who was actually behind the wheel and lastly to get a picture of how they sawed this crash all came together he used some information from the airbag control module that captured some pre crash information all of those together gave him an incredibly complete picture of this particular crash and led to 12 years for the driver coming up a morning commute ends in tragedy for a father of three investigators on the scene struggle to explain what's suddenly said his car spinning out of control next after a young girl is struck and killed while crossing the street two drivers deny any responsibility and her remains offer clues that tell investigators what happened [Music] for a driver seeing a pedestrian or seeing something in the road is not about visibility it's about what's called conspicuity something has to stand out against the background in front of you a lot of times what that is is movement you don't necessarily see the pedestrian at first what you see is movement ahead of you when you see movement you can react to them you know there's a lot of complications at night one of those complications is oncoming headlights it's amazing how much they can actually block a complan Benjamin Davis is coming back from an office happy hour he's worried because the gossip was all about company downsizing it's a real distraction and these SUV headlights coming at him don't help half a mile down the road on the side of the street Miranda Smith is in a hurry to get back home after a tough 10-hour shift at work she's almost there she just has to cross the street and the vacant lot behind it but fate has other deadlier plans [Music] when Detective Andy rich arrives at the crash site Miranda's body is in the middle of the road she's pronounced dead at the scene there's only one thing he can do for her now and that's to discover the exact circumstances that ended her life at just 18 my main focus as a detective for the prosecutor's office is to determine if a crime has occurred first thing I did was go to the police officers who are already on the scene just to get a basic feeling for what was going on the police officers tell him that it may be a hit-and-run the victim certainly seems to have been struck by more than one vehicle three witnesses claimed the first vehicle to hit Miranda Smith was a van which then took off in a hurry the driver of the SUV following the van claims the body came out of nowhere and fell onto his front hood after being struck and there's another driver in the mix who says he had to steer his car around the body when it ended up in the opposing lane both drivers stopped while the van fled there are a few versions of what happened but there's only ever one version of the truth accident investigators run into some complex and interesting cases and this is one of them so Andy's gonna have to look at the physical evidence from the roadway from the vehicle from the bodies and sort out what really happened using the objective information that doesn't have an interest in the case moreover if it's a hit and run times working against him and he's got to work fast and we've described as a fan you guys put an alert on it yes we did we already have an alert put out in it the search is on for the missing van but at the scene Andy rich is concentrating on what the evidence can tell him for all accident investigators there is a simple rule of thumb anytime two objects come in contact with each other there's gonna be a transfer of evidence however not in all cases are we gonna find that physical evidence in this case we were lucky there was a lot of physical evidence first Andy has to determine whether or not the woman was hit in the first place and if so by which car and in what order my next step would be to go see the body and determine what type of injuries at least on the outside that I could say see if they're consistent with motor vehicles if this woman was hit by a car how many different types of injuries am I going to sweep for example sliding along the ground head contacts from windshields and this way I can match up for example if I see glass in the in her hair I want to see which vehicle has a fractured windshield just like this one help us better understand what happens when a pedestrian is hit by a car applying crash-test data is the job of biomechanics experts like judge will turn suggest what kind of injuries would you'd expect to see from a pedestrian in my car as you can see by the alignment of the bumper to your knee the most common area of injuries down the lower extremities with the lower leg you see damage to the knee structures and as you get up to higher bumpers or shorter individual damage into the thigh the femur area as the severity increases the body will begin to hit further up onto the vehicle you'll begin to get head contacts up under the hood structures you get severe injuries as you get further up into the windshield area Andy rich sees signs of injuries just like those but he doesn't yet know what vehicle hit her or how many times she was truck his findings here will be critical as they could lead to jail time for one or both of these drivers Andy's first move is to talk to the driver of the car go back to your car meet the officer Benjamin Davis says he didn't see the teenager getting hit by any other vehicle he says the body just appeared in the middle of his lane and he barely missed it by swerving hard like jumped out at me I barely missed her I was just going I was little driving a car told that I didn't hit the woman at all rich needs to check out Davis's story first he takes another look at the body to see if it can offer up additional clues and it does [Music] he finds a colored smudge on the woman's sneaker that looks very similar to the color of Davis's car his next stop is the car's rear end when I looked at the car I found what I believed to be bloodstains in front of the rear wheel I also found bloody tire prints four of them but from the body to where the car parked it appeared just on its face that this vehicle had contact with the body but just to make sure I measured the distance between each tire print and calculated what the radius of the tire would be that left it looked like that tire from the car made those four prints also the tire treads the pattern appeared to be consistent with what we saw on the roadway a good accident investigator has to cover all the bases even though some red substance may look like blood Andy's got to be sure so he's gonna run what's called a kastle-meyer test on the roadway in the bumper of the car to do a kastle-meyer test you have to mix together two basic chemicals phenol saline and hydrogen peroxide you get a wet swab you get it wet with distilled water and rub it over your suspect stain put the chemicals in contact with that swab and if it turns pink you have a positive test meaning that it's actually blood the test proves positive in his blood it's clear now that Benjamin Davis did not tell the truth he just tested your car it's got her blood on it you know something you want to tell me I pretty much just approached him and told him I know you're lying that we had tire prints leading from the body to his car and that we tested the surface of his car and it tested positive for blood so we knew that his vehicle came into contact with the body at which point the driver admitted that the body bounced into his car what happens where the body landed on my hood okay while Davis is changing his story to Andy rich the driver of the SUV is telling a police officer his version of what happened his story was he was just driving along going westbound when the body dropped in on him out of thin air and his story was that another car had hit him first projected the body up into the air and then it landed on his car but there's still no sign of any missing van in fact there's no evidence at the scene that there ever was a van at all only the statements of witnesses who say they saw one we were unable to find any parts from another vehicle I started doubting then that there was actually another vehicle if it turns out there was no van it's either the car or the SUV that hit the teenager first rich is still trying to figure that out but more than that he's working on the how and why she was hit in the first place coming up a little piece of fabric turns Andy Rich's investigation 180 degrees and later can headlight fragments explain why a car mysteriously tumbled out of control [Music] the life of a bright 18-year old named Miranda Smith has come to a tragic and sudden end on a busy roadway she was hit by at least two vehicles a car in an SUV each drivers pointing the finger of guilt at a mysterious van that fled the scene after hitting the girl accident investigator Andy Ridge is starting to piece this story together and he's pretty sure there was no van involved he knows the driver of the car is a proven liar now what he wants to do is figure out if the driver of the SUV has a better grip on the truth Robert Johnson says he was simply driving home in his SUV after a visit to a friend's apartment he claims he was behind a van when out of the blue a body landed on the hood of his SUV he stopped and saw the van zoom away rich turns to examine the SUV soon enough he finds a mark made by the young victims clothes but it's not on the hood of the SUV it's somewhere much more telling and I found what fiber weave impressions on the bumper is a pattern left on a car normally in the surface of the paint and it there's no mistaking it for coming being produced by a set of blue jeans and we look at the angle that the fabric weave impressions were and it was consistent with somebody standing that means for the van to have hit Miranda Smith first she would have had to land on her feet in front of the SUV before getting hit again an almost impossible scenario after five hours of investigation rich is now almost certain there was never a van and that the SUV hit the young woman first but he needs more proof the next major piece of the puzzle will come with the results of miranda smith's autopsy so andy wastes no time getting down to the morgue for a consultation with Medical Examiner dr. Mary Ann Clayton my god I need to figure out whether she was standing when she was hit well I would say so she's got the typical upright pedestrian group of injuries first off she's got a lethal head injury impact left forehead pretty extensive skull fracture pattern under that and she's got your classic bumper fracture the left lower leg how high is that fracture 17 inches that's exactly the height of the guy's bumper great good correlation thank you doctor Clayton's report confirms Andy's working theory the lethal head wound is consistent with a windshield strike to a standing position likewise the broken fibula bone shows that Miranda's legs were virtually cut out from under her by a fast moving vehicle exactly the same height as Robert Johnson's SUV after his visit to the medical examiner's office and he had the SUV tow to this garage he wants to eliminate the hit and run scenario once and for all evidence from the fiber weave on the bumper and injuries to her body show that Miranda Smith was hit by the SUV while she was standing now he'll examine the blood spatter on the SUV that may turn out to be the most revealing evidence of all [Music] if we look up in here at these bloodstains you see that they all have directionality it's a blood drop that has a tail to it and if we look at all of these tails when we trace the directionality of each of these bloodstains we'll see that they all converge at this windshield wiper spindle here and you can see where the hair is deposited this tells me that the woman's head had common to contact with this windshield wiper spindle and in the blood the blood sprayed up in this direction causing these stains what we don't see is any indications that the body could have just dropped in from the sky for example getting hit by a vehicle first and then falling in if that would a case we would see a nice circular drop of blood without any of the tails since that's not here we could pretty much eliminate that this body just dropped in the witnesses say there was a van but the physical evidence proves without a doubt that this was simply not the case in a serious accident like this the witness is first getting very much bombarded with emotions their emotions are heightened as a byproduct of that their perceptions are decreasing because it is a different part of your brain that incorporates emotions than what incorporates thought processes so as your emotions heighten your thought process actually become disorganized [Music] the circumstances surrounding Amanda Smith's death are now clear to Andy rich first she was struck by Robert Johnson's SUV a collision that whipped Miranda's legs out from under her and flung her headfirst into the windshield the body was then thrown into the opposite lane where it was hit by Benjamin Davis's car but there is still something bothering Andy he needs to know why Robert Johnson didn't see the woman after all she was in the middle of the road and there's no indication of swerving or breaking this is a key question because it could determine whether Johnson's actions were reckless and if criminal charges should be filed my main focus as a detective for the prosecutor's office is to determine if a crime has occurred I asked him if he had his headlights on if they were working and he said they were on and working but that's not enough we need to go to the physical evidence to see what the real truth is hey Andy what do you got looking at these light bulbs here I want to see if this guy had his headlights on or not at the time of the crash so this is the marker light is a light on the side of the car and looking at the filament here that looks like we got some hot shock this one is stretched out so this is telling me that this light was on at the time of the collision so let's go a step further and look at the headlight okay this is unexpected here we're looking at some cold break here it's not suggest this one was off right this light his headlight was off but yet we had a marker light on normally you're both gonna have them both on or off so we've got one light on and one light off right even though the driver told rich that the SUVs headlights were fully on the evidence says otherwise next the investigator needs to determine if it was a case of driver error or if there was a problem with the electrical circuit this van had in the automotive industry what they call a multi-function switch now and you rotate this switch one click it turns the parking lights on when you rotate it a second click it puts on the headlights so what must have happened in this case since the circuits were working properly is the driver only put the parking lots on he only turned that multifunction switch one click after seven hours Andy rich has established exactly how Miranda Smith was hit and killed Andy rich concludes that Robert Johnson didn't see the young woman until it was too late for two specific reasons one the headlights of his SUV were not on - he was blinded by the oncoming headlights of Benjamin Davis's car in the end no criminal charges were actually filed both drivers trying to get themselves out of any potential blame by making up parts of their stories well that may not be a crime it's not exactly honest either and it made Andy Rich's job a lot more difficult there are a number of reasons for pedestrian crashes on the pedestrian side wearing dark clothing and entering where there's not enough light or where a driver wouldn't expect you is not a good idea on the driver's side there's distractions there's oncoming headlights a number of different reasons the driver may not readily see the pedestrian entering the road one last thing that driver can do though is make sure the lights are turned on all the way but for the turn of a switch this pedestrian is still be alive next investigators trying to solve a single vehicle crash that killed a father of three make a startling discovery at the scene one that dramatically alters the course of their investigation [Music] the sharp steering maneuver right and left at low speed not a big deal you can recover from it at high speeds with a buildup of lateral friction that might be a little tougher to deal with in Toronto we have a single vehicle rollover that looks like it came from such a maneuver some sort of steering input investigators there trying to figure out why [Music] a 911 call leads police to an overturned car on a busy Ontario freeway the first officer on the scene confirms the worst the driver has been ejected his body crushed after being torn from the vehicle during the crash lies over 60 feet away from what remains of his car the police soon confirmed the identity of the victim his name is Paul Taylor a local father of three who left home early this morning hoping to avoid any heavy traffic heading into the city a Brad Muir is a senior reconstructionist with the Ontario Provincial Police he leads a team of investigators who respond to fatal crashes on some of the area's most heavily traveled expressways their job is to solve a mystery why did this car suddenly roll over and who or what was at fault a single vehicle crash is the most difficult scenario they face they offer few clues to help investigators determine what went wrong I first came on scene I was confronted with this vehicle that was rolled over on its roof partly on the roadway partly on the shoulder and it was obvious to me that he had rolled over and you know I saw that because I was walking down the asphalt there was an area of scraping where the vehicle was on its roof and some paint transferred onto the road broken glass from one of the windows that shattered upon impact when he rolled over and you know I had to look at this vehicle and there's no obvious cause on the roadway of why this vehicle rolled over I had to get down and have a closer look at the vehicle for any damage or something that might have caused him to wind up where he did brandish team have just showed up on a rollover crash you've got somebody ejected they're dead and the problem with that is you can survive rollover crashes with a simple fix that would be seatbelts seatbelts keep you in the car the car protection the rollover that's an easy fix unfortunately folks don't take advantage of that and in rollovers they get killed [Music] now these guys have got an interesting crash they've got a very limited amount of evidence to work with one vehicle on scene we don't know if the guy was asleep at the wheel run off the road what what happened they're gonna have to sort out and they'll do it with what little they have to work with right now [Music] rollovers are extremely violent events if this one was caused by a mechanical failure it would be an easy thing to spot but nothing stands out instead it appears as if this car just suddenly became airborne at 50 miles per hour and began tumbling down the road a survey of the wreck offers little to investigators until brad muir discovers an odd stain on the back bumper well looking at the back bumper of the vehicle i noticed there is a paint transfer and some paint chips on the back of the bumper no you know a vehicle of that age and of course in a city it's not always the smoking gun there's a lot of cars just walking through any parking lot you'll see scuffs and scrapes on their bumpers it's a matter of trying if you can to isolate what would constitute fresh damage or fresh transfer versus something that's been there for a while it can be very difficult sometimes depending on the age of the vehicle fresh damage would suggest that another car was involved in this crash pain can be transferred from one car to another on impact but only further tests back at the lab can confirm this suspicion given the extent of the damage Brad concludes that the vehicle was moving at high speed and therefore it took several seconds to come to a stop whatever caused the driver to lose control took place at least a thousand feet up the road they got a pretty good crash scene here what have you got well I've worked about a thousand feet back up the road a lot of nothing at the moment just some evidence from this car and we rolled over and some scrapings off the back bumper everything else was pretty much gathered in this scene here and that's all from this park so far in here it's all from this car I have nothing that indicates to me another vehicle was involved after an exhaustive survey of the crash scene beer offs to search for more evidence further down the road beyond the original point of impact and what he discovers dramatically alters the course of the investigation when I walked down the road and I start to see you know a puddle of antifreeze or engine coolant on the roadway you know that it could just be a rad hose letting go but then when you couple that with some some broken car parts in the same area right adjacent to it it's it's not any one of those things by itself but when you couple all those three things together you know now I'm on the right trail now I'm pretty much I've got a failed to remain here and I need to investigate this further and see if I can identify that other vehicle that's no longer in my scene Brad Muir's team has solved one mystery but are now faced with another evidence gathered at the scene tells them a car that rolled over and ejected its driver was actually struck by another car investigators now realize they are in a race against time to find a driver who has caused one fatality and may still be behind the wheel they may only have a matter of hours before this driver disappears into a sea of commuters and is lost to them forever coming up can a few specks of paint and a broken headlight bring a hit-and-run driver to justice [Music] yeah no I'm on over there now Paul Taylor a 36 year old advertising writer is cruising along in the early morning hours hoping to avoid rush-hour traffic into the city instead the father of three finds himself in a terrifying rollover that starts when he is bumped by another car evidence found at the roadside tells police the other car may have stopped briefly before fleeing the scene 20% of all accidents are hit and runs and it usually means a driver has been in trouble before but the shock and stress of being involved in a crash can have profound effects and even the most responsible driver is it possible to make poor judgment during a panic attack is the question is a good one because research shows us that when we are in panic or in a heightened state of anxiety our emotional response bypasses our thinking brain we have a very old and primitive part of our brain called the limbic system that responds to fear and that part of your brain is designed for survival it's not designed to make good decisions or do any problem-solving in difficult situations which is why people often say they can't think clearly when they're in a panic situation basically at that moment it's as if your mind is saying to your body you're in danger get out of here and get out of here quick [Music] Brad Muir returns to his office with a few specks of black paint a few drops of antifreeze and some pieces of plastic it might not sound like much but to an investigator it's almost as good as a flip ring well though I've got a grave piece of a headlight that's the back into a reflector lens for a headlight and this got what appears to be a part number for a General Motors vehicle it's got the prefix GM which indicates to be General Motors r4 right so I know it's a right-hand headlight and it's got a looks to be an eight digit part number on here which I should be able to nail down to a particular line of General Motors vehicles it's a lucky break and within a few minutes grab you or knows exactly what type of GM car initiated the deadly rollover crash that killed Paul Taylor if you think about what Brandis team have been able to accomplish in such a short period of time it's pretty amazing that's what good accent investigators do they've taken the evidence from the scene and from that been able to sort out not only the make and model of the car but also its color now they're going to turn to us for help Brad's given the details of the investigation to the media they're going to flood the airwaves with this information and by the end of the afternoon instead of just a couple hundred police cars looking for the driver we'll have a couple million pairs of eyes peeled taking no chances that this car might slip off the radar investigators also put the word out to repair shops and dealerships in the area to report any driver seeking repairs to a damaged radiator at a right front headlight some sort of green stuff leaking you go think [Music] less than 24 hours after arriving on the scene of a fatal rollover Brad Muir is called to a garage that suspects they may have the car that initiated the crash Martin reduce vehicle undergoes a quick inspection in the garage the telltale signs of damage Muir had anticipated are enough to secure a warrant to seize the car and to examine its sdn module or blackbox recorder I downloaded the airbag control module known as the SDM are sensing diagnostic module for this vehicle it had a bit of an event data recorder portion where it recorded some information for the bullet car the striking vehicle and that really helped me because it showed that the driver of that car or that car underwent a change of speed of about 7 miles per hour over about a tenth of a second seven miles per hour doesn't sound like a lot but over that little time period it was certainly a significant impact for the driver of that vehicle and it really was settled in my mind that she had to know that she had hit somebody because seven miles per hour in a tenth of a second that's a significant bump for her with the final piece of the puzzle in place rusty and Brad can now replay the fatal chain of events or Paul Taylor it should have been another routine commute into the city arriving early into work allowed him free time in the afternoons to help coach his eldest son's soccer team but shortly after he enters the freeway a car driven by Margaret door comes up from behind fast it makes contact with Taylor's rear bumper while attempting to pass the impact immediately causes his rear wheels to lose contact with the ground sending him spinning to the right when his wheels touch back down they dig into the asphalt and hurdled the car onto its side sending it rolling thousands of feet past the point of impact unfortunately Paul Taylor is not wearing a seat belt in an instant he is launched out through the driver's side window and into the ditch he dies from severe trauma to the head and massive internal bleeding Margaret door on the way into the city to take her final college samms flees the scene but Brad Muir discovers crucial roadway evidence and builds a dragnet that eventually lands her in court margaret doors clean driving record helps convince a judge that her poor judgment was not malicious instead of the five-year maximum penalty she is handed a 90-day sentence and her license is suspended for one year the fact that investigators were forced to track her down after the crash still baffles brab you for some reason she just decided to fail to remain and took off and essentially turn what might have been a minor infraction Highway Traffic Act regulatory violation into this criminal fail to remain I I just I struggle at times trying to understand the human nature side of what motivates people to just take off and use somebody else in the ditch like that you [Music]

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 242,270

Keywords: patrolling, police, real responders, full episodes, police officer, cops, rescue, accident investigator, accident investigation safety training video, investigation discovery full episodes, law enforcement, everyday heroes, full episode, a&e tv, car accident, motorways, freak accident story, survival videos, cars, truck accident

Id: L1qw0QFBEJA

Length: 48min 24sec (2904 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 06 2019