Westchester Wrong-Way Wreck Driver Felt Sick

The woman who drove a minivan full of her children and nieces the wrong way on the Taconic yesterday was feeling ill, but there is no indication of drugs or alcohol being involved in Westchester's worst accident in 75 years. Diane Schuler of West Babylon was on her way home from a weekend camping trip upstate when she called her brother on Long Island to say that she felt sick—apparently so ill that he offered to come get her if she would pull over. However, she didn't know where she was exactly and two hours later, she veered onto the other side of the highway. Schuler, 36, apparently had been on the wrong side for 2 miles before crashing head first into an SUV, killing all three Yonkers men inside it—father and son Michael and Guy Bastardi and their friend Daniel Longo. Schuler, her two-year-old daughter Erin and her three young nieces—Emma, Alison and Kate Hance— all died in the crash. The only survivor was Schuler's five-year-old son Brian, who is amazingly in stable condition. A secondary collision with a Chevy Tracker left a Freehold couple with minor cuts that they were treated for. Police now await autopsy and toxicology results to learn more details of Schuler's condition.

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By Billy Parker in News on July 27, 2009 3:02 PM

Comments [rss]

Ph

The Taconic is friggen notorious. This is so tragic :(. That highway has produced so many grizzly wrecks in the past, especially the farther north you get.

robingee

Grizzly?

Spirit of 76

Worst decision she could have made. If you're that sick, just pull over and put your blinkers on. So you don't know where you are. Somebody will come by eventually and they should be able to tell you. It's really not worth risking the lives of your children, other people and yourself. She could just as easily have slammed into a bus full of people. Nothing is so important that you need to keep driving at all costs. She had a cell phone. She could have called 911 for help.

theevilone

I know, you just wonder what was going through her head. I have gotten sick before while being on the road, and did just that, pulled over, put the hazards on and I'll tell you I had been on the shoulder no longer than 2 or 3 minutes when a police car came up to check on me and I hadn't even called.

To drive 1.7 miles and successfully swerve around cars for a while - I just cannot fathom what happened other than flat out death wish.

Bort

"Worst decision she could have made."

YOU THINK?!

valeriob

Just a horrible tragedy.

ohgoodgolly

I admit that my first inclination was to assume she was drunk, but considering the lack of evidence pointing to substance abuse and the claim that she wasn't feeling well, this sounds like a problem with her brain. Maybe a stroke, brain tumor or the beginning of some sort of fugue state.

The NYT article says she swerved around several cars during the 2 miles, so if she was really trying to kill herself I don't think she would have wasted all that time.

Spirit of 76

We may never know exactly what the cause was. I suppose it could also have been a heart attack. They say that aside from the various types of pain in a heart attack, there can also be an overwhelming sense of imminent doom. That might explain why she felt she absolutely had to keep driving, trying to outrace that sense of death breathing down her neck.

Bort

This fugue state theory is interesting, and frankly, the only thing that really makes sense other than death wish or drunk right now.

gpoint

My first guess would be that her appendix burst and she bled to death internally and was dead or almost dead when she crashed

jules1000

As far as I know a burst appendix causes a lot of pain, but you would definitely be able to pull over.

And you don't bleed to death from it. IF you die from it, then from the internal infection it causes.

Steven

She had to be drunk or wanted to committed suicide (but why???).How do you drive 2 miles in the wrong way without pulling over to the shoulder or median?

Those parkway signs are really small it's easy to make a mistake like that at night when it's pitch dark, not in the middle of early afternoon.