Rough Weekend - OK State

[Slugger926]

http://heavy.com/news/2015/10/bonnie-jean-marvin-stone-married-couple-oklahoma-state-stillwater-homecoming-crash-victims-dead-killed-professor-photos-family/

Thanks to being busy with kids activities of baseball and my daughter practicing for the Nutcracker, we skipped homecoming at OSU. I didn't hear about the crash at the parade until 7:30 pm.

The next morning starting at 5am, my phone starts going off like crazy and facebook msg's that we had lost one of our professors and his wife, Marvin and Bonnie Stone. The Biosystems Engineering department was very small when I was in school, and the instructors out numbered us kids 10 to 1. Dr. Stone was one that would stay and help us late at night with controls labs or digital logic, or anything electrical or electrical/mechanical. He escorted the other graduate and myself when our whole class of 2 graduated in 1995, although they graduate 40 or more per year now in Biosystems Engineering.

Both my brother and sister worked with Dr. Stone when they went through school, and we all remained friends since school.

 

[csb]

I saw the headline for this earlier today, where the father of the driver was saying, "Absolutely she was not drinking." I'll be interested to see what comes out as the reason she plowed into a parade.

Very sad to see.

 

[Slugger926]

Mandatory drug tests will tell the truth. My brother was almost killed a few years ago when a driver did something similar in his neighborhood, but turned out the driver had a freak medical incident that caused him to temporarily pass out or go into seizures or have a stroke. When he did, he floored the gas rather than turning into his driveway. He destroyed my brother's brick mailbox and lawnmower, and my brother barely escaped.

The crazy thing is her work sent her home because they suspected she was high. Here, we always have someone like that be driven home, and have a spouse come pick up the vehicle. In our case, we have had several workers with medical conditions so we knew it wasn't drugs.

 

[Road Guy]

very sad story, and sorry for those you lost that you knew.

If she wasnt anebriated, I wish people that have some sort of problem (wont call it mental illness) but people that are just feeling for sorry for themselves would find other ways to get their 10 minutes of fame than by killing people that had no business being harmed..

 

[csb]

I'm also intrigued by her sleep schedule. The training we took from NTSB last fall showed that fatigued driving can be worse than drunk driving. Seems like she may have been short on sleep.

Though it is kinda looking like she was trying to commit suicide and instead committed murder.

 

[Dleg]

What a terrible thing.

Fatigued driving (if that's what it was) is indeed very dangerous. When I worked in the oil field we were given training in how to manage our sleep, just to cover the ass of the coporate insurance policy, i am sure. Because in reality, we all worked around the clock and then drove when we never should have been allowed behind the wheel. I found myself asleep at the wheel at 80 mph many times, only awake because of the sound and vibration of my tires hitting the shoulder.

 

[frazil]

That's really sad. Sorry slugger.

 

[knight1fox3]

I also saw the headline this morning and just thought "geez...."

 

[kevo_55]

I'm sorry Slugger.

This is just terrible.

 

[MA_PE]

Very sad incident and sorry for the loss of your friend Slugger.

I don't see any reason (yet) to condemn this girl as a demon. I think there's some extenuating circumstance behind this awful tragedy. She'll likely be incarcerated for the rest of her life but no one will get any satifaction.

 

[Slugger926]

The rumor is that her work sent her home because they thought she was on drugs. If it was lack of sleep, she would have been complaining about that at work I would think.

If she wanted to commit suicide, a better choice would have turned out of her work and head out of town towards the tollway where she could find a bridge to ram or drive off of.

 

[csb]

Humans are horrible at self-reporting full levels of fatigue. (Yet another tidbit from class.)

And f-that! We have to fix the road and she still could have hurt someone. If you're going to encourage death by vehicle for a suicidal person, encourage them towards a closed garage. Our infrastructure is failing as is.

 

[Road Guy]

or a steel strain pole...