Taconic Crash 911 Tape: Kids Pleaded for Help in Cell Call
Emergency calls show tragically futile attempt to locate wrong-way driver.
Oct. 26, 2009— -- In never-before-heard 911 tapes, a family friend tells emergency dispatchers that at least one of the terrified kids in the July Taconic Parkway wrong-way crash managed to call relatives to plead for help just minutes before she died in a head-on collision that killed eight of the nine people involved.
"The girls just called in distress," the friend tells dispatchers, apparently referring to driver Diane Schuler's three nieces who were in the car. "They said the aunt is driving very erratically. They think she's sick."
The family tried to call back, but by then the girls were "like radio silent on the cell phones," the friend said. Other tapes describe authorities attempting to organize a search for the vehicle, unaware it was already too late. With four children in car, Schuler drove nearly two miles the wrong way down New York's Taconic State Parkway before plowing head-on into another vehicle.
Click here to listen to the 911 tapes.
In another 911 call a woman, apparently a witness to the crash's gruesome aftermath, described the horrifying scene.
"Yeah there are [injuries]," the woman said as another screams in the background. "There are like little kids. The kids [are] not moving. There's a whole bunch of kids. Honestly the car's smashed."
Click here to listen to the call.
Schuler, her two-year-old daughter and three nieces were killed in the crash along with the three men in the other vehicle. Schuler's five-year-old son Bryan was the crash's only survivor and suffered two broken legs and a broken arm among other serious injuries.
Toxicology reports after the crash revealed that Schuler had been drunk and high at the time of the accident and had a blood alcohol content of more than twice the legal limit. Investigators could not determine if Schuler had been drinking while she was driving, but alcohol was in her stomach at the time of the autopsy and a bottle of vodka was found at the crash scene, New York State Police Major William Carey said at a press conference.
