Is anyone familiar with police reports?

[StPaulieGirl]

I know you can't fight City Hall, so maybe this is just a rant.

Some of you might remember that I mentioned my youngest daughter being in an accident on August 13th.  Well the police report is finally done.  I'm back down here to do some packing, so my daughter read a portion of the police report to me over the phone, until I told her to stop.  

They're blaming the whole thing on the driver of the truck my girl was in!  When my daughter (the almost 22 yr old) got to the part where the driver reeked of alcohol, I told her to stop.  On the night of the accident, Jessica went out to dinner with my daughter's fiance's brother.  They had a margarita with dinner.  Then they stayed at my daughter's place for several hours until he took his daughter back to his ex gf's.  At that point, Jessica and my youngest decided to spend the night at her house.  No alcohol was consumed at my daughter's house.  3 adults will testify to that.  It is the truth.

I received a call from a witness at the accident scene telling me the little one was in an accident.  His phone cut out, but not before I heard my girl howling in the backround.  I called my daughter to get out there and see what was going on.  Okay, my daughter called Jessica's parents at the scene, and told them what happened.  Her father called back the next day and and said that they took a blood sample at the scene and she tested positive for alcohol.  One drink, 4 hours before, and it still registers?  Well okay.  He also said, this was all told to my daughter btw, that he knew a lot of people and would pull some strings.

Yeah, that asshole pulled some strings alright.  I finally spoke to him last night.  He's telling me that he examined the skid marks and he could tell right away that it was Jessica's fault.  My little one's stubborn, unchanging memory of the events is faulty.  Then he tells me that she's moving to Nevada or Arizona to get a license.  Earth to Larry, that ain't gonna happen and you know it.

Just to help anyone reading this make sense of what I'm getting at, let me tell you some things about Jessica's parents.  Apparently Jessica was not a wanted child.  She was treated pretty badly.  A couple of things came back to me while I was on the phone with her father.  One was the time that Jessica's brother beat her up.  I think he dragged her by her hair over the carpet, and she had to have stitches in her lips.  Her mother lied about what happened to a police officer in the emergency room.  Jessica's lips were so swollen, she couldn't talk.  Mom's excuse was that it might affect her employment as a teacher.  I remember when Jessica came over the next day and told me what happened.  Even better, her father and brother at a later date pushed her buttons until her redheaded temper shot through the roof.  They then restrained her and had her admitted to the county psych ward for a 3 day vacation.  That's when she moved in with me.

She graduated a year ahead of schedule with honors.  She is a plumber and bought a tiny house at age 20.  When she lived with me, she not only helped my son with his homework, but also taught my youngest to read.  I didn't get off work until 9pm, which was their bedtime.  She even remodeled the bathroom.  Her parents financed both her brother and sister's college tuition, but they told Jessica to go pound sand.  There are a million other charming episodes, but these I remember.  That poor kid has been trying to prove herself to her parents for as long as I've known her, and all they do is kick her to the curb.

Back to the police report.  Reeking of alcohol?  Try a broken bottle of Victoria's Secret perfume that was in the cab of the truck.  Peeeeeuuuu! What is the stabilizing ingredient in perfume?  ALCOHOL!  BAC?  There wasn't one on the report!!!  There is not one damn thing about Jessica having a drop of alcohol in her blood stream.  It took almost a whole month to come up with this fairytale?  F.U. Larry.  

Is there anything we can do?  Emergency personnel are not going to remember smelling perfume in a multi-car collision.  The emergency rooms that they went to are jam packed with people 24/7.  They won't remember.

Some of you might be saying that I shouldn't care about this.  Well think about this:  We are staying with my daughter until we can find affordable housing.  My little one left her sister's house with Jessica.  The police report is a crock of shit, but an official report nonetheless.  What happens if my ex and Satan's little helper get their hands on this?

Yep, it turned into a rant.  Thank you for reading this, and if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.  

[ocean]

I am a little confused about the accident night but did they go to the hospital in an ambulance that night? If they did, she can go get  copy of the detailed ambulance report. Easiet way is to go to hospital and ask for a copy of the PCR ambulance report from her file (She will have to do this). This will tell you if they smelled anything that night and what they observed. Same thing goes for the hospital staff....you can ask to see the intial paperwork from the hospital that states what the nurse/dr first saw when they came in.

[StPaulieGirl]

Actually they were airlifted to two different trauma centers.  The traffic was tied up through the Cajon Pass, so they couldn't use an ambulance.  There should still be a report like you mentioned.  I will pass this info on to her.  Thank you!

[Kitty C.]

Sure, in larger, metropolitan areas, many calls will blend together for EMS personnel, but a perfume bottle broken in a car wreck would CERTAINLY be smelled by EMS and noted.  First, they are required to write down everything they see and hear......and smell.  That's the FIRST thing I do coming up on an accident.  And perfume has a MUCH more distinctive smell than booze.  Why?  Because it's NOT COMMON.  We're always looking out for something out of the ordinary.  Regardless of number of calls, I would distinctly remember smelling pervasive perfume at an auto accident.  I may not remember names and instances right away, but if I went thru the run sheets, I bet I could nail it down pretty quickly.

Go to the ambulance service, see if you can find out EXACTLY who responded to that call (the names will be listed on the run sheet) and talk to the paramedics personally.  Get their names, addresses, and phone numbers and hand that info over to your atty.  Subpoena them if you have to, but I bet you can get some VERY useful info from them.  And don't worry about having to use them as witnesses....they're no different than cops and often testify.  Even in our rural area, I've had to write statements in regards to DUI accidents......what I observed of the patients and vehicles.  Luckily I've never been called to testify, but it's always a possibility.

[StPaulieGirl]

I could do this because my child was in the car, couldn't I?  If a bottle of perfume broke, then my kid would also smell to high heaven.  I'm just thinking about possible problems with confidentiality laws.  No one at Loma Linda mentioned anything to me about this.

I have the contact info for Mercy Air, because they sent me a bill for over 7k :/  I think it was the Fire Department that cut them out of the truck, so I could ask them for their logs.  I need to write this down.  I'm computerless up there.

I talked to my older daughter last night, and Jessica is already in Nevada.  When her parents said they would take care of her bills for her, they drained her savings account.  I guess the kid doesn't realize that her house is going to end up in foreclosure.  If she tries to obtain a driver's license under false pretenses, she's going to be in a world of hurt.  

Thank you so much for your input.  I'm going to do some phone calls tomorrow.  I was supposed to be back up there yesterday, but I'm battling an ant invasion, plus trying to find where the kids buried their clothes.  Their bedrooms are demoralizing.  Oh yeah, still need to pack up the canned goods. At least I got the important phone calls and errands done.  

PS:  Did I mention that Jessica's father told her not to file for disability?  She's a plumber.  How do you do that with a cracked pelvis, fractured elbow, and apparently a head injury that is still preventing her eyes to focus?  My little one was damn lucky.

Thank you again!

[Kitty C.]

Sounds like Jessica's family are POS's...........

If you have to, contact the fire dept. as well.  If they had to cut them out, they would have been right on top of it as well.  If they were cutting around someone, they would have had a firefighter or EMS person inside the vehicle holding traction/C-spine immobilization on the patient.  THEY would certainly know if they smelled a LOT of perfume...there's no way they'd forget that!  

[StPaulieGirl]

I don't understand her family.  Her mother has taught school for years, and her father owns his own business.  He does contract work for the county doing weed abatement.  Her father did me a couple of favors when we lived up there before, and her mom would bring groceries when Jessica was living with me.  I just don't get why they keep dragging her down.

I'll add the fire dept. to my call list.  I hope I can get to the bottom of this.

[wendl]

why would you have to pay 7K. If the accident was the fault of the other pary their insurance coverage should cover the medical bills, or if the fault of the car she was in, didn't that car have personal injury protection/medical coverage insurance on their policy. Look into that.

lol hmm can you tell I am in the personal lines insurance(car/home etc) industry.

**These are my opinions, they are not legal advice**

[Hawkeye]

Yes, we can fight city hall... don't let the propaganda get to ya.... and we can elect new congress people, new sheriffs, new folks who care about kids

folks like Dave Franker.......

those who have been there, done that.

[StPaulieGirl]

It doesn't say "reeking of alcohol".  The various personnel involved smelled alcohol on her breath, according to the report.  Anyone who has imbibed even a small amount of tequila knows that it won't go away.  The driver's BAC was .003.  I haven't had time to contact anyone, but it looks like her father is finally on board.  There is a possibility of a fifth driver.  This person could have hit them and took off, before anyone noticed.  Skid marks suggest this possibillity.  Jessica's insurance company is investigating the whole mess, and I told her that my girl will talk to them.  

I just have too much crap to take care of right now.  I finally got the computer debugged enough to access the internet :-(