The Worcester Police Department has released a new video from the incident that led to the death of a man who was killed after a car crashed into a stationary pole.
The video is a police statement released after a family had the chance to review the crash footage. An unnamed driver was on the phone with a Worcester 911 operator after the car crashed into a pole. The operator tells the driver to hang up the call and then she shows the caller a video of him speeding away after the crash. The officer then asks the caller to explain what happened, and the caller responds, “I was trying to have a conversation with the officer, and I pulled over.
The police are reporting that the driver of the car, identified as John Doe #2, didn’t realize his phone was turned off until after he’d already gotten behind the wheel. He then kept on driving, and the car went off the road, hitting a stationary pole. He’s now facing charges for leaving the scene of a crash with a blood alcohol content of.11, which he says he’s been telling the officer all along.
This is the second time this year we have reported a crash that was caused by a driver who was under the influence of alcohol and was driving without his phone on. Last year we also learned about an officer who was trying to find the person responsible for a car accident he caused by being drunk and texting.
Police are getting a lot of heat over a case that seems to be based on the idea that they are overreacting. It started when a man died from his injuries after he crashed into a tractor trailer. The man had a blood alcohol content of.11. After investigation, police say the man was texting and drinking while driving. He then crashed into the tractor trailer, causing him to lose consciousness.
We all know where this story is heading. The man died from his injuries, but this isn’t the first time someone has died from a drunk driver’s decision to text or drink. In fact, a report from 2000 found that over twenty-five hundred drivers killed themselves or fatally injured themselves with alcohol. The most recent report from 2006 found that over 1,000 people killed themselves or fatally injured themselves with alcohol each year in the United States.
How many deaths do we, as a society, have to make a habit of? The answer’s a lot, but it’s not nearly as many as the drunk drivers. A study from 2010 found that between 1999 and 2004, a total of 1,836 people died from their own actions, or in accidents, or from alcohol-related deaths. From 1999 to 2009, that number went up to 2,836, a five-fold increase.
For every death, there are 10,000 more that are caused or exacerbated by alcohol. The statistics are sobering. While suicide has been increasing for a long time, it’s still a very rare occurrence. The death toll from alcohol has been rising for a while, too. When you compare the number of deaths from alcohol with the number of deaths from suicide, suicide is a much more common cause of death.
The problem with suicide is that it is so easy to hide. If you’re going to commit suicide, you’re going to do it in a private location, which is exactly where alcohol-related deaths tend to occur. And if you do your dying in a place where alcohol is readily available, it will almost always be a person who had no idea what was going on, and so would be in the wrong place to commit suicide.
One of the things I’ve found as a blogger is that I am a lot more likely to think about why I might be dead than ever. I’m more likely to think about the reasons I might be having a drinking problem or that I might be doing drugs or that I might be taking some other illegal action.