Ocean City Maryland beach hummer accident

[PARAGON]

911 center releases second tape in Assateague crash



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Jennifer Lehman
Staff Writer

(March 18, 2005) Geographical coordinates that OnStar provided Emergency Services the evening of Feb. 5 were not given to Assateague Park rangers, a new 911 tape reveals.
However, whether those coordinates would have helped in the search for 25-year-old Adam Starkey and 24-year-old Jennifer Holly Ashe remains unclear.

The tape, which was released by Emergency Services this week, is a recording of the phone call between a 911 operator and an Assateague Park ranger. The call takes place after Emergency Services spoke to an OnStar representative, who informed them of a distress call from a vehicle located on the national seashore.

OnStar provided rough coordinates — 38.21 latitude and -75.14 longitude — to the 911 operator, but those numbers were not passed onto park rangers at the time.

“The incident we have is going on at the National Parks Service,” the 911 operator informed an Assateague Park ranger. “An emergency button was pushed to OnStar on a vehicle that’s a Hummer somewhere out there and they gave us coordinates, but we have no idea where this is.”

“OK. Did they say if they were on a road or on the beach,” asked the park ranger.

“They said it was on Assateague National Seashore and they gave us coordinates. That’s all they gave us,” replied the 911 operator.

In an earlier report, Robert Fudge, chief of visitor services for Assateague Island National Seashore, said the coordinates from OnStar were not an exact pinpoint of a 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.”

According to Fudge, the park rangers did a thorough search of an area where off-road driving on the beach is permitted.

“They went on an off-road vehicle zone to find anybody that needed help,” Fudge said, adding during their search the park rangers assisted a couple whose vehicle was stuck in the sand. Starkey’s Hummer, however, was located in an area not permitted for off-road vehicles.

Surfers stumbled upon Starkey’s body lying next to his partially submerged 2004 Hummer the morning of Feb. 6. The next day, a park ranger found the body of Ashe.

Autopsy results revealed that Starkey and Ashe died of hypothermia, with contributory injuries from the accident.

Charles Waechter, an attorney representing families of both victims, continues to question why park rangers did such a limited search of the island when they received word of a distress call.

“How much time did [the park rangers] spend assisting the other vehicle and what did they do after that?” Waechter asked.

The recently released tape also reveals that no deputy from the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched to the island that evening.

“How far away was your deputy?” the park ranger asked.

“Well, we cancelled him. Do you want us to go ahead and send him back in?” the 911 operator replied.

“…I will go ahead and respond myself,” the park ranger said. “You can tell him to disregard.”

Once the surfers discovered Starkey’s body and vehicle, nearly 12 hours after park rangers were alerted, a multi-agency search and rescue operation was activated.

[PARAGON]

Tale of tape



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Jennifer Lehman
Staff Writer

(Feb. 25, 2005) Somebody pushed the emergency button inside the overturned 2004 Hummer the evening of Feb. 5, which subsequently alerted authorities of an accident somewhere on Assateague Island.
According to the 911 tape, which was released Tuesday morning by Worcester County Emergency Services, an OnStar operator told the 911 dispatcher he heard screaming coming from the vehicle, but did not know an exact location of the accident.

“I’m trying to give you a better street, or at least a crossing street, but I don’t have anything,” the OnStar operator said.

"That’s fine. That should be enough," replied the 911 dispatcher. "Did they give you coordinates or anything like that? … Cause there’s not really many streets back there, it’s just an island."

The OnStar operator eventually gave the 911 dispatcher coordinates – 38.21 latitude and -75.14 longitude.

"OK, we’ll see what we can do with that," the 911 dispatcher replied.

According to Robert Fudge, chief of visitor services for Assateague Island National Seashore, 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 Wednesday. "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."

Surfers found the body of 25-year-old Adam Starkey and his partially submerged 2004 Hummer the morning of Feb. 6 – nearly12 hours after authorities received the OnStar alert.

A second body, that of 24-year-old Jennifer Holly Ashe, was found on the beach by a state park ranger on Feb. 7. Her body was located a half a mile south of the Ocean City Inlet and about four miles from the crash site.

According to reports, OnStar sent a distress call to the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office just after 9:30 p.m. on 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 any vehicles in distress.

"They went on an off road vehicle zone to find anybody that needed help," Fudge said recently. He added that during their search the park rangers assisted a couple whose vehicle was stuck in the sand.

The Hummer, which was severely damaged and found submerged in the ocean’s surf around 8 a.m., was located in an area not permitted for off road vehicles. Starkey’s body and vehicle were found on the beach, north of the park’s Sinepuxent Ranger Station.

The state medical examiner has confirmed Starkey died from a leg injury complicated by hypothermia. Ashe’s autopsy, however, is still pending.

In recent weeks, 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.

Hummers typically contain a "Sensing Diagnostic Module" device, similar to a black box found in airplanes. Some SDM devices can reveal information such as the speed, how far the accelerator pedal was pressed, if the brakes were applied and whether the driver’s seatbelt was buckled.

However, it is unclear whether Starkey’s Hummer contained one of these devices or if authorities found it.

"That’s part of the investigation," Fudge said. "That’s the sort of thing law enforcement would be looking into."

[PARAGON]

New Details Emerge In Fatal Assateague Crash



Shawn J. Soper, Staff Writer

OCEAN CITY (02/18/2005) - While investigators may never know exactly what happened on the beach at Assateague Island, nearly two weeks when an off-road vehicle overturned and ultimately claimed the lives of its two occupants, new details emerged this week providing a little more insight into the moments after the crash.

On Saturday, Feb. 5, around 9:30 p.m., the OnStar vehicle-equipped emergency services system received a call from a vehicle in distress on Assateague Island. Using the provided latitude and longitude coordinates provided by OnStar, National Parks Service rangers initiated a search of the island, particularly focusing on the area designated for off-road vehicle traffic, but the search proved fruitless.

Early the next day, surfers discovered an overturned Hummer and the body of its driver, Adam Starky, 25, of Cockeysville, near it on the beach in the surf in an area where off-road vehicles are not allowed. A little more than 24 hours later, a state park ranger found the body of Starky’s passenger, Jennifer Holly Ashe, 24, also of Cockeysville, about a half-mile south of the Ocean City Inlet and roughly five miles north of the Hummer accident scene.

The State Medical Examiners Office this week officially determined the cause of Starky’s death to be leg injuries complicated by hypothermia. The official autopsy results for Ashe are still pending as of yesterday.

Because of the terrain and the lack of roads on the island, OnStar used its high tech global positioning system (GPS) to approximate the location of the distressed vehicle and relayed the information to the appropriate emergency response agencies.

“Our folks took the call and because there are no roads there, we provided longitude and latitude coordinates to emergency responders,” said OnStar Vice President of Communications Terry Sullivan.

While the series of events leading up to the accident may never be known, new details emerged this week about the initial call to OnStar.

The OnStar call center, which provides personalized emergency roadside assistance to equipped vehicles 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, receives calls from vehicles in distress in several different ways. For example, a deployed airbag or sensors on the vehicle detecting a moderate or severe collision can automatically transmit an emergency service call to OnStar.

However, in the case of the Hummer accident on Assateague, the call came from a distressed individual and not from a deployed airbag or other source, according to Sullivan.

“We received an emergency button press from an individual in or near the vehicle,” he said. “An air bag deployment did not trigger this one. The call was clearly made from a woman in distress.”

It now appears Ashe had the wherewithal to push the button to initiate the call to OnStar, but the emergency services facilitator was not able to make a verbal connection with the victim.

“We did receive the emergency key press but were never able to make verbal contact with the caller,” he said. “We could hear a woman in distress on the tape but it was unintelligible. We could hear screams but it was garbled.”

Sullivan said it was possible the caller was no longer in the vehicle when OnStar attempted to respond to her call for help.

“It almost sounded like the caller was outside the vehicle,” he said. “If that was the case, we would have been able to hear her, but she wouldn’t have necessarily been able to hear us.”

[LasVegas]

Very interesting.

[KenP]

38.21 latitude and -75.14 longitude.

Looks wet to me. Something weird happened up there.
http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mapquest.com%2Fm aps%2Flatlong.adp

[LasVegas]

Checking to see if an H2 would float.

[PARAGON]

Less than a quarter of a mile from the ranger station (Toll Booth)

[PARAGON]

I guess the tide was out and they were out playing in the wet sand.

[Klaus]

I'd say if the Hummer was upside down the OnStar GPS unit wouldn't be getting a very good satellite lock, which would make the location less accurate.

[ckhagman]

We all know that Lat/Lon. coordinates are not very accurate but that 911 operator is a moron. She stated, "OK, we’ll see what we can do with that." It is like she didn't know what they would use them for. Of course OnStar has to get better with GPS coordinates. They should be standard practice when giving a location.

[Queen Sheba]

<span class="ev_code_BLUE">I am sorry, but why would they look in a place where they were permitted? Come ON! Human nature says that when we have a vehicle that makes us feel safe, we are going to test the limits anyway? They should have been looking in the place where they shouldn't have been. Maybe they would have found them sooner. That must have been a horrible way to die</span>

[RI Hummer]

28' of water my my chart at that location. I'm surprised the GPS coordinates are that far off

[Andy C]

Originally posted by Queen Sheba:
<span class="ev_code_BLUE">I am sorry, but why would they look in a place where they were permitted? Come ON! Human nature says that when we have a vehicle that makes us feel safe, we are going to test the limits anyway? They should have been looking in the place where they shouldn't have been. Maybe they would have found them sooner. That must have been a horrible way to die</span>

Its a statement like this that makes an ex Scottish Highlands volounteer mountain rescue team member shudder.
We frequently went out on calls looking for idiots "testing their limits in places where they shouldnt be".

Most of those people died horrible deaths as well.

[partsguy]

They have trails back there.I used to camp every
next to last weekend in may.Full of bogs and blood sucking flying ex wives.(mesqitos)I do not know how they got that far out,passed out from drinking maybe..

[MIZZOU H2]

Coulda just as easily been any one of us. Keep it safe folks and try not to wheel alone.

[ROX]

I guess OnStar is only as good as the people that answer the call. OnStar markets their whole system around the fact that they get help when you need it the most! That's supposedly what its for! Those park rangers should have known to keep looking. Why didn't someone alert the Coast Guard? They know what to do with GPS coordinates! I'm upset because it could have been me.

I agree with MIZZOU H2, keep it safe. Sorry for the rant.

[tower]

Okay. As someone who is currently active in search and Rescue on a regular basis, I feel compelled to say a couple of things. Not having heard the actual tapes, and not being familiar with that part of the country, my comments will be few.

First, I agree that the OnStar operator could have been more emphatic about the significance of the coordinates. I differ with others in that I find GPS coordinates to be tremendously accurate and very helpful even when used for "last sighted" information. He/She also could have given a detailed description of the vehicle make, model, color. license plate number, drivers name, etc. That might have prevented the ranger's possible assumtion that finding "anybody that needed help" or "a couple... stuck in the sand" had disposed of the issue.

Clearly, the rangers didn't realize the seriousness of an OnStar distress call. So probably, there is a gap in their education.

Moreover, most agencies employ an ICS or Incident Command System, whereby no single individual calls off a search without input from a site commander and many other involved parties and agencies. If this system had been used, there probably would have been FLIR equipped helicopters looking for these two in very short order. It is impossible for me to say if this would have been life-saving.

I don't think there is any one person or agency upon whom we can place all the blame. But God knows, I would want things to run a lot more smoothly if I had a loved one out there in distress.

Echoing what others wrote, let's all keep it safe.

[PARAGON]

Tower alluded to this but I think this was simply a system breakdown. This was a breakdown with OnStar as well as the locals. Allow me to read between the lines and I'll explain:

One big key that Onstar has said since this incident is that it was not an airbag notification but someone pushed the button. This obviously lowered the priority of the call for Onstar. The other excuse Onstar gave was that the message was garbled or whatever and that it appeared the female was outside of the vehicle. So Onstar made the obligatory call and gave coordinates but I don't think they care much after that.

Many local emergency responders and 911 operators are not familiar at all with Onstar and/or it's capabilities and I imagine the Onstar operator gave a nonchalant attitude to the 911 operator on the call. I don't know how many false calls Onstar receives but I am thinking this was where the breakdown occured, that no priority was really given the emergency.

Where I do differ from Tower is the continued response and this is where my biggest issue lies with this whole ordeal. Onstar has the ability to track your vehicle for emergency purposes through GPS just like it did with the inital call here. But, if the Rangers went to the general location and didn't find anything, Onstar should have been contacted again to verify the vehicles current location. If it remained the same then they know something is up. If it is at an address in the city, a patrolman could be sent to verify, if there was no signal at all, then you go out in force to find them. There was obviously battery power immediately after the accident because Onstar was contacted. Onstar was able to get some general GPS coordinates from the vehicle. After the first sweep of the area, Onstar should have been contacted again to verify the vehicle's location. It doesn't appear that the full capability of Onstar was utilized at all in this situation.

[tower]

Dear Paragon,

I don't think I disagree with anything you have said. I was assuming that the coordinates that the Onstar operator gave, were the last available and that the vehicle submerged and quit transmitting. Hence, the full search.

I also agree that there was a system breakdown and had better choices been made by any number of individuals at a few different points in time, the outcome might have been less grim. I strongly suspect that there will be significant changes in interdepartmental policies consequent to this investigation. I just get really bummed when people have to pay with their lives for agencies to get their protocols together.

Be well friend,
t~

[Linda]

ok..... Im like really getting upset about this whole thing, and the way it was handled after reading these posts!

I was a dear freind of Adam (the driver of the hummer) and I have been doing so much research on the internet about the whole happenings of that night, when I stumbled upon this site. Very interesting, yet very very disturbing. Without a doubt they BOTH should be alive today if it werent for poor communication along with what appears to be a lot of poor dessions that night. Such as calling of the search the night that they could have been saved.

This is the first I have heard about a second 911 call, does anyone have any further info on that? Last I heard the 911 clearly could heard from the Onstar people that there was a girl in great distress.... to me that would be enough to have a bit more extensive search. Then another site I was on said that bassed on the cords that they gave, they certainly could have at least been in the general vasinity IF they had read them right!!

Sorry, dont mean to rant, but this was my freind!! And it makes me sick to think of him freezing to death out there while Jen went walking to get help and this whole thing could have very possibly ended on a much better note.

I know that Adam did feel fearless in his hummer, and apparently he was doing some pretty wild driving.

Soooo, so sad

-Linda