But thanks so much for giving us 
Posted on 05/11/2004 10:01:19 AM PDT by presidio9
A rented SUV was speeding at more than 90 mph when it clipped a car it was trying to pass and veered out of control, killing seven people inside, including four young children, authorities said.
The Ford Explorer went airborne, slammed into trees in the median of Interstate 95 and landed on its roof. The accident happened Sunday about 10 miles west of Bangor in south-central Maine.
Two women and a child died when they were thrown from the SUV, while its other four occupants -- a woman and three children -- died inside. Troopers initially thought five people died, but two additional bodies were found when the SUV was lifted, authorities said.
The victims were from South Portland, and four of the children were 8 or younger, said Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.
Killed were Kelley Armstrong, 28, and her 4-year-old son; Danielle St. Paulin, 29, and her three children; and Hope Gagnon, 29. St. Paulin's children ranged in age from 4 to 8.
The Explorer was rented from Hertz at the Portland International Jet Port earlier in the day.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I don't know of any vehicles (except NASCAR racing) that are designed to provide safety at 90+MPH. This is a case of driver negligence and stupidity, not an unsafe vehicle.
It annoys me also that many people who drive SUVs do so for the "look". We see SUVs here that have never known mud or snow. At least ours works for a living, but around here most of them don't. They're just "urban assault vehicles" for pissed off soccer moms.
No, that vehicle is just unsafe. At 40mph into a barrier those in the front sustain serious, possibly critical, injury, where in safer cars there would be little or no injury. The problem is that the cabin collapses onto the occupants, and depending on the year of the car, the door pops open to let the occupant's head through.
And besides that they feel invulnerable.
You forgot to tell us what they had for breakfast. Since you obviously know everything else about SUV drivers why didn't you throw that in to really emphasize your point.
Yes, that may explain the child, but of the three people thrown from the vehicle, it was reported that two of them were women, and presumably of adult size.
If it were me, the only way I wouldn't be in a seat belt of a vehicle going 90, would be to try to jump out if the driver ever had to slow to 25! Clearly, the SUV part of this story is the least of it, it was the behavior of the occupants, particularly the driver, that turned this into a tragedy.
Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Mechanical malfunction did not cause the high-speed crash Sunday that killed the seven occupants of a sport utility vehicle outside Bangor, police said Tuesday.
Investigators pried open the wreckage of the rented 2004 Ford Explorer and analyzed the car's components. They searched for any malfunction that could have contributed to one of the deadliest accidents in state history, which killed three women and four young children from South Portland. Police found no defects in the vehicle, which had been driven just 1,100 miles.
Police also discovered nothing to shed light on why the driver would have swerved into the breakdown lane while going more than 90 mph in an effort to pass two cars that were side-by-side on Interstate 95. There were no alcoholic beverages in the car. Two vials of medication recovered from the wreckage were prescribed to two of the women and would not have compromised their driving, police said.
"There are going to be a lot of questions we probably will never have an answer to," said Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland. "Why they were going so fast and why most of them were not belted are questions we will probably never know the answer to."
The three women set out after lunch on Mother's Day, having told friends they were planning a day trip to Fort Kent to meet a man that one of them had been communicating with over the Internet. That woman, Hope Stuart Gagnon, 29, had her three children with her: Deion Stuart, 8; T'keyah Stuart, 6; and Ariana Stuart, 4. Kelley Armstrong, 28, brought her 4-year-old son, Kristian Armstrong-Smith.
Danielle Saint Paulin, 29, came by herself. She had considered bringing her 13-year old daughter but decided against it.
Investigators found nothing in the car to indicate where the women were headed.
"We're going to give the vehicle one more good going-over (today) to make sure nothing anywhere would give us a clue where they were going to or coming from," said Lt. Wesley Hussey. "As of right now, we have nothing."
Police believe Gagnon was driving when the Explorer came up quickly behind two cars and swerved abruptly into the narrow shoulder along the right side of the interstate. As the Explorer pulled even with Nikki Yawn's 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee they bumped lightly, barely creasing a flange over the Cherokee's front right tire.
But investigators suspect that contact was enough, combined with the narrow breakdown lane and the rumble strip, to make the Explorer carom right, then swerve left as the driver overcorrected.
A series of black skid marks stretched across the two northbound lanes of the interstate, indicating the car was probably sliding sideways, police said.
"Instinct is going to tell you to hit the brakes. Whether or not they did, who knows," Hussey said. "Talking to the reconstructionist, they were probably either going into a sideways skid or were into it already as they were crossing the pavement."
The vehicle does have an event data recorder, a so-called black box, but the information police were able to recover from it was in a form that was not useful, Hussey said. Investigators decided the standard accident reconstruction should yield the information needed without the electronic data.
Police said the license of the likely driver, Gagnon, was suspended in 1997 after an accident and civil suit in Virginia. Officials in that state would release no details about the accident.
Police in Maine said Tuesday they are conducting special tests to be sure Gagnon was the driver. The crash was so violent that Gagnon and two other occupants were thrown from the vehicle.
"We're not putting a lot of emphasis on who was driving and who was sitting where. We believe she was driving, but we're trying not to put it too, too hard in stone," Hussey said.
One reason police believe Gagnon was driving is that witnesses say they saw her getting into the driver's seat while the SUV was pulled over two miles before the crash site, less than two minutes before it happened.
"We're very confident it was her, but we would like to obviously have something definitive from the crime lab if they were able to get it," McCausland said.
Evidence collection specialists planned to compare fibers found on the car's upholstery with the clothing worn by the occupants. The state medical examiner also will study the occupants' injuries for clues about where they were when the vehicle crashed.
Police have yet to receive the results of blood-alcohol tests that are required in fatal car accidents, and they also have sought blood tests to determine if any medications or drugs were involved.
Police believe only Saint Paulin and Deion Stuart were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.
Police have not aggressively pursued the reason behind the women's trip north, in part because they have not launched a criminal investigation.
"There is going to be no prosecution. It's more of finding out what was happening," Hussey said. Police were conducting interviews in Portland and planned to explore the possibility they were headed to Fort Kent, he said.
The situation is something of a mystery around Fort Kent.
At Rock's Diner, the restaurant where many of the locals go to eat, patrons talked about the situation Tuesday morning, but without much certainty. Some said they might know who the Internet acquaintance was, but most said they didn't.
Rumors, patrons said, get around quickly in a town, which has a population of just over 4,000.
"It's the first time I heard Fort Kent's involved," said Manzer Belanger, the town's postmaster, who read about the accident in a local newspaper. "And I would have heard about it."
In Carmel, where the accident happened, state troopers and local emergency personnel held a critical-incident debriefing Tuesday as part of the process for dealing with the psychological impact of the horrific accident scene and the children involved.
"Maybe they can just help us bring closure," said Carmel Fire Chief Joseph Pelletier.
Staff Writer Giselle Goodman contributed to this report.
Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: dhench@pressherald.com
Look what came in with the morning coffee!
How did you find this Website?
"I blame society. We foster these maniacal tendancies in SUVs." -- Ho Chi Kerry's VVAW Senate Hearings
What idiot does 90 MPH with 4 kids in the car? No doubt the roll over contributed to their deaths, but flat out agressive and illegal driving caused the accident.
I see this all the time, people who don't have a clue how to drive the "big" vehicle their penis envy required them to own.
You drive around in almost any SUV, whipping it around like its a honda civic or something.. taking it just to the limit of its suspensions ability to stay on the ground.. then sooner or later they take it just a little too far, and instead of a spinout, or other issue like a car would do, you wind up rolling the beast.
But thanks so much for giving us
Reckless driving, combined with a vehicle whos dynamics, like it or not, make it far more likely to roll over. Roll over contributed to the death in this accident, as it does in most roll over accidents.
I know people here get all jumping ugly when you bring up the facts about these vehicles, but its reality. Yes, these cars have higher centers of gravity and are far more prone to roll over, when a car rolls over you are far more likely to be thrown from the vehicle, you are far more likely to wind up with head and upper torso indjuries, you are far more likely to be crushed.... that's reality folks.
Cars and other vehicles with lower centers of gravity by and large don't "Roll" in many accidents where SUV's will.. they will spin out, and do other things, but it takes a hell of a lot to get a care to roll over, usually it involves the car hitting and embankment or other thing that puts the car airborne at an odd angle to get a passenger car to roll.
Many people who drive SUV's don't respect this reality, they weave them in and out of traffic like they are in some sports car.
The facts are the facts, and as much as people here may not want to hear it... when involved in accidents, SUV's are more likely to roll, and if your vehicle rolls you are more likely to be seriously injured of killed. That's reality.
Most of what you're saying is true and could be gleaned by reading the BDS (Bangor Daily Snooze).
The women sounded like gimme girls and from what I read, there was no mention of fathers.
What really sparked my BS meter was that all seven were killed yet the media made a big thing about the two poor kids that weren't belted in.
Hey media! They're all dead!
Good question!
Yep, I do blieve...
I hate minivans. I have owned several 4WD vehicles, and have never rolled one. Common sense ought to tell you it is easier to roll a Surburban than a Corvette. Any vehicle in the hands of an idiot can be an instrument of death.
What's worse, it appears that one of the folks thrown from the vehicle lost their kilt.
I drive a Tracker (aka Suzuki Sidekick). I am aware of warnings that the vehicle is more likely to turn over. However, I also drove jeeps in the Army and they had the same issue. I simply temper my driving accordingly.
If you don't drive like Speed Racer, this problem is not going to come up. The responsiblity for this accident lies soley with the driver and the indviduals that let her drive.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
Anecdotal evidence not supported by facts. And this is supposed to convince anybody???
Let me guess. The equivalent of wreckless driving?
So let's see, you know this from personal experience because you weren't in an SUV and it didn't flip?
You might want to retake that logic class.
No amount of spin will change that fact. SUV's flip when a minivan or car would not.
Halfway reasonable rollover accidents aren't nearly so bad as a head-on or t-bone. But when you are doing 90mph any accident has serious potential to be fatal.
You can flip anything at that speed, including low slung sports cars. It's a whole lot harder to flip a corvette, but it is a whole lot easier to wind up wedged under something too.
Your can make friends with SUVs by just changing the oil ever 3000 miles.
They do that in east Tennessee, as well. "So and so was killed; h/she wasn't wearing a seatbelt". Imagine my surprise when several people were killed in an accident locally, and the news commentator mentioned that "all those killed Tuesday WERE wearing seat belts". Sometimes they save you, sometimes they don't, sometimes they are even the cause of death. (I'm returning to New Hampshire soon, where you aren't FORCED to wear a belt. Guess they don't need the money...) I am VERY FAMILIAR with that stretch of I-95 in Maine, having driven it well over 100 times. It is relatively straight, with just a few mild curves. The POSTED SPEED LIMIT IS 65 MPH...this woman was doing 90 (for whatever reason), and SHE, not the 'SUV' killed everyone in that vehicle. By the way, for those who say she may have been 'deceived' about her true rate of speed because she was sitting up high in this particular model? Every SUV I have seen comes with a speedometer, and most with cruise control. I give thanks that the poor folks in the car she clipped came through safely. Too many people are killed by idiots who feel they have the right to break the law, which this woman clearly did.
!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah... my wife lost control of her car a couple of years back while transporting her mother to our home. Was on an icey bridge on a turnpike. Rest of the road was not icey. She was doing about 65... car spun.... went across the median on the bridge which was a raised concrete sidewalk 8 feet wide and 16 inches tall. Across the lanes of oncoming traffic, bounced off the concrete bridge wall on the other side... back across the traffic spinning and came to rest with 3 wheels on the bridge median. She was in a Buick Regal that didn't turn over. Was no way a SUV would have pulled that off. Regal was totaled, but both passengers okay (if you don't count scared almost to death).
LOL!
(but you spelled to many words correctly)
I may have overlooked it, but did ANYONE mention WHY this killer's license was suspended?
Yes, they caused a significant crash in VA in '97 and failed to compensate those she injured. OSunds like the equivalent of wreckless driving. The thread started on 5/11, it was resurected this AM.
LOL I needed this today... God bless ya Owl..
Oh geez! Well, at least I got to look at Russell Crowe. ;D
Ewww, gag, Russell Crowe!
Actually, there's a legitimate reason to mention the SUV. Look at the data on deaths and injuries relating to SUV rollovers and you can see why.
If I wanted a SUV I'd shop for one. Are all the dealerships pushing these things this way?
It is because they are afraid of getting stuck with them due to increased gas prices and the manufacturers are offering bonuses for sales of SUVs.
I think if the reason were solely because of a faulty SUV then it would be reason to mention it so prominently. But, the article doesn't say if the people were properly restrained in the vehicle. It does say that they allowed the woman, who had proven herself to not follow the rules that would allow her to retain her driver's license, behind the wheel. It goes on to say that they estimated a speed of 90 mph when they hit trees in the median. I think slamming into trees in the median, along with not using proper restraints - especially on children, did far more to lead to the deaths of those people than merely being inside an SUV.
As with most articles regarding SUVs these days, the author approaches the story with the SUV being an entity of its own. They lay blame on the SUV instead of the person driving it. This is the same ridiculous reasoning that has us looking for nail clippers in airports instead of focusing on young to middle aged muslim men.
hi, i just wanted to let u know if no one has that the driver didnt rent. kelly did. they had switched drivers a couple miles before the accident happened
hi, i dont know when u posted that question to me, i was just going through emials and found my confirmation email from signing up with my password and login and went to see what it was LOL.. anyway, i was doing a search on the accident because i had just moved away and wanted to get as much info on it as i could to try and figure it all out, and somehow came across this website. i think i went to yahoo and just put in "mothers day crash"
of course no one knows, but we all have opinions on it
I'll be danged if that picture doesn't remind me of the end scene of "Psycho" when they drag the car out of the quicksand.
I agree that they were gimme girls. kelly {the one who rented the SUV but wasnt driving at the time} was a follower.. more than i would say. she was the type of person that would go against her own judgement just to have someone like her. very needy of attention. i didnt know hope, but my grandmother did, i guess she worked at the store near my grams house. she said she was nice. but nice has nothing to do with having ur 3 kids in the car and not even bothering to buckle them in
it made me want to vomit when in the papers they talked about how much she loved her kids and all the functions she took part in. big effin deal.. that doesnt make you a good mother, what makes u a good mother is protecting them and making sure they are safe always.. i guess that included buckling them in and not going 90 weaving through traffic.
i did not know danielle so i have nothing to say on that. she was the one that had decided not to take her children along. from the sounds of it though the only reason was there wasnt much room and she just didnt want to be bothered. either way im glad she didnt.
i still have alot of anger on all the adults. if danielle had bothered to put her s eat belt on, either she was nervous about the way they were driving or she was just cautious and always wore it. either way, she was in the back with those kids and should have made them put theirs on. they probably still would not have lived but she whos to say. either way, at least they wouldnt havnt been found in trees.
as far as fathers go for these kids. i guess hopes husbands, and father of her children had died last yr or some time in the past couple years, i dont know how or exactly when
kelly, as i said was needy for approval so i dont think i need to asy much more on that
danielles kids apparently had a couple different fathers but i dont know much about that
lmao on the kilt. its sick but it was kinda funny
i hung out with kelly when i was about 15, when i knew her she was a shy girl. she seemed very intimidated and pretty much just went along with the flow. i liked her alot because out of the group we hung out with she was the most.. moral? what i didnt like though and always felt bad for her about was that she always did what people wanted even if she didnt want to. i think the only blame she really has in this is that she didnt buckle her son in, and that she didnt try to stop hope from going so fast..or who knows, maybe she did, maybe thats why the suv swerved into the breakdown lane. we will never know and maybe thats a good thing that we dont. to me the only one to blame is the driver. the others fault was the seatbelts. i dont think any of them would have survived either way, but those kids should have still had them on
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.