Fatal Assateague accident investigation continues
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Jennifer Lehman
Staff Writer
(May 27, 2005) As summer quickly approaches and thousands of visitors begin flocking to the Eastern Shore, park rangers at the Assateague Island National Seashore are not planning any major changes to the rules regarding off road vehicles.
In February two people died after their 2004 Hummer overturned into the surf while driving off road at the island – an accident that has spurred an ongoing investigation.
Robert Fudge, chief of visitor services for the national seashore, said Memorial Day weekend is a popular time for visitors to drive along the beaches and no new regulations will be enforced.
“Everything remains the same in the off road vehicle zone in the way it’s marked,” Fudge said.
Meanwhile Attorney Charles L. Waechter, who currently represents families of the victims, is waiting on a lengthy report from the Department of Interior that will detail what may have happened the evening of Feb. 5.
However, the next steps the families will take “is probably premature to say,” Waechter said.
Surfers stumbled upon the body of 25-year-old Adam Starkey and his partially submerged Hummer nearly 12 hours after OnStar alerted authorities of an accident on Assateague the previous night.
OnStar, a vehicle safety device that automatically contacts emergency personnel when involved in an accident, sent a distress call to the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office just after 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 5.
The Sheriff’s Office subsequently alerted Assateague park rangers who, according to Fudge, did a thorough search of an area where off road driving on the beach is permitted, but were unable to locate the Hummer.
On Feb. 6 the body of 24-year-old Jennifer Holly Ashe was found by a state park ranger on the beach, about four miles from Starkey’s body and a half mile south of the Ocean City inlet.
According to the state medical examiner, both victims died of hypothermia, which was complicated by injuries they received from the accident.
Over the last few months, authorities have kept a tight lid on the investigation, revealing very little about what may have happened during the 12 hour period before the two victims were found.
According to a 911 tape, somebody from inside the vehicle pushed the OnStar emergency button just after 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 5. While the OnStar operator said he heard screaming, he did not directly speak to the occupants.
“We didn’t receive a discernable response,” said Terry Sullivan, vice president of communication for OnStar. “The advisor indicated that he thought he heard a woman’s voice, but the sounds are unclear.”
The 911 tape also indicates that the OnStar operator could not find an exact location of the accident, but was able to disclose latitude and longitude coordinates.
“They were very exact coordinates,” Sullivan said.
However, Fudge said the coordinates were not an exact pinpoint of the location, but more of a general area.
“[The rangers] investigated with what they were given,” Fudge said on Feb. 23. “They looked in an area they thought was an appropriate area. It does sound like that it was very hard for them to get an exact location.”
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