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| Subject: Why keep bringing this up? The governor was a passenger | |
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Author: Bev |
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Date Posted: 08:40:02 04/21/07 Sat In reply to: Oropan 's message, "And it gets worse!" on 13:30:56 04/17/07 Tue In most states he is considered a wronged party when the driver causes a accident where a passenger is injured . http://www.nj.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-11/1177129885173060.xml&coll=1 State Police probe if gov's driver was distracted by love Off ventilator, Corzine is breathing on his own Saturday, April 21, 2007 BY JOSH MARGOLIN AND DEBORAH HOWLETT Star-Ledger Staff The State Police are investigating whether the trooper driving Gov. Jon Corzine at the time of last week's crash was distracted by an ongoing, bitter dispute with another police officer over a woman. State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes confirmed the investigation in a statement last night but would not elaborate on the accusations. The head of the troopers union said Trooper Robert Rasinski is cooperating with the investigation and that it involves a romantic triangle. Corzine remains hospitalized in critical condition with numerous broken bones in his chest and a fractured femur. Yesterday, for the first time since the April 12 accident, doctors were able to remove him from a ventilator that had been helping him breathe, his spokesman said. As to Rasinski, investigators are now looking into whether he was communicating with the unidentified officer from Union County, either by phone or mobile e-mail device, while he was driving the governor or just before, according to Davy Jones, president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association. "Rob's dating a girl, whose soon-to-be-ex is a cop in Union County. That guy made an allegation. Affairs of the heart are always very, very difficult," Jones said. The local officer, Jones said, is "getting divorced; he's bitter, he's mad and he wants his pound of flesh. Understandably, it's being investigated ... to see if there's any merit or not." Jones said Rasinski has waived any privacy rights in this case and is willing to let investigators review his e-mails and phone calls to exonerate himself. Jones said he believes Rasinski was in a professional state of mind while driving the governor and fully capable of performing his security and driving obligations. Rasinski, who has not commented since the crash, did not respond to a cell phone message last night. State Police spokesman Lt. Gerald Lewis said Rasinski had no comment. Rasinski is represented in the investigation by the union and its attorneys. Fuentes issued a statement saying State Police "are in receipt of an allegation made against Trooper Robert Rasinski and will look further into the matter." "Once we conduct an inquiry, we will make a determination if this allegation has any nexus to the ongoing accident investigation, or if it should be handled as an internal (affairs) investigation," the superintendent said. In the days since the crash, investigators have been trying to figure out if the dispute could have distracted Rasinski while he was driving Corzine as the governor rushed from South Jersey to Princeton at high speeds with emergency lights flashing. State police have said the SUV was traveling at 91 mph on the Garden State Parkway before a swerving car sent it careening into a guardrail. The governor was riding, without a seat belt, in the front passenger seat. Rasinski has already been questioned about the dispute and possible distractions and additional questioning is anticipated, Jones said. "What I do know is that they asked the obvious questions about distractions: 'Were you on the phone?' Or that the kid was on his BlackBerry," Jones said. "I can tell you, they don't get BlackBerries. Only the supervisors get BlackBerries." Jones said investigators have been told the estranged husband sent Rasinski an e-mail about the time of the crash, but that Rasinski could not have seen it prior to the accident. Jones stressed Rasinski's "good name" will not be tarnished with the accusation or subsequent investigation and said he doubts the public will care about Rasinski's private life. Rasinski suffered minor injuries in the crash and spent one night in Cooper University Hospital in Camden. He remains out of work on medical leave and may return to active duty once he is cleared by State Police physicians. Corzine suffered major injuries, including a broken femur, 11 broken ribs, a broken breastbone and collarbone and a broken verterba. He has been hospitalized at Cooper since the wreck and remains unable to carry out his duties as governor. The fractures to his rib cage and the resulting pain made breathing difficult, prompting physicians to immediately put him on a ventilator and breathing tube. Doctors removed the breathing tube yesterday at 12:25 p.m., after the governor "no longer required respiratory support from the ventilator," communications director Anthony Coley said. In a brief statement late yesterday, Coley said Corzine's "respiratory function will be closely monitored to ensure that he can continue to breathe on his own and cough efficiently. Doctors do not entirely rule out the possibility that the breathing tube will need to be reinserted." All three of Corzine's children as well as his companion, Sharon Elghanayan, were at the hospital yesterday afternoon. The governor "was able to make some progress" toward speaking, but was not yet able to talk, Coley later told The Star-Ledger. "He has a ways to go to be able to talk like he did before the accident," Coley said. He declined to provide further details about Corzine's medical condition, including whether he remained sedated, whether he was still using a feeding tube or if he was still in the Trauma Intensive Care Unit. Hospital officials also declined to comment on yesterday's developments. Doctors finished surgically repairing Corzine's leg on Monday. On Wednesday, doctors said they placed two catheters in the governor's back, near his spine, to "bathe" his rib cage with a local painkiller in an attempt to better control his considerable pain, while reducing the doses of morphine he has been receiving intravaneously. Weaning Corzine from the ventilator is a major milestone in what physicians say will be an arduous recovery that will take months. The major threats to his immediate health are infection, blood clots and pneumonia, according to medical experts and Corzine's doctors. "It's huge that he's off (the ventilator)," Kristy Weber, an orthopedic surgeon at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, said yesterday. "With the type of injuries he had, this length of time seems reasonable. It's hard to imagine he could have come off much sooner." Weber said the next step for doctors would probably be to get him sitting up and breathing as deeply as he can, then get him moving. The longer a patient lays in bed, Weber said, the greater the risk of developing a blood clot that could travel to the lung. Bruno Molino, the associate director of trauma at Jersey City Medical Center, said doctors may also look to move Corzine from intensive care to begin inpatient physical therapy. They will also want to get him eating solid food again, rather than continuing to rely on a feeding tube. "The fact that he's off the vent is a good sign that his lungs are recovering from the initial trauma," Molino said. Just because Corzine has come off the ventilator doesn't mean he may not be reconnected, cautioned Stephen Becker, a trauma surgeon at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune. "This was an opportunity for them to see how the governor would do with the mechanics of breathing on his own," Becker said. He said a key factor in whether Corzine remains off the ventilator is whether he will be able to cough up secretions on his own, which can be very painful with the sort of injuries Corzine suffered. If he is unable to do that, Becker said, he may have to have a breathing tube reinserted to help avoid developing pneumonia. Meanwhile, the governor's office said that since it set up a direct link on the governor's Web site Tuesday, it has received more than 800 e-mails from well-wishers in New Jersey and from out-of-state. The circumstances of the crash -- as well as investigators' reports and records of interviews with key players and witnesses -- will be reviewed by the State Police Motor Vehicle Accident and Vehicular Pursuit Review Board to determine whether the crash was "preventable" or not. If the crash is deemed preventable, Rasinski could face disciplinary action. In his seven years on the force, Rasinski, 34, has been involved in two on-duty accidents: one that was deemed "preventable" in 2003; and a second one in 2004 that he had no control over when his marked police cruiser was hit by a tractor-trailer on the New Jersey Turnpike. He joined the governor's Executive Protection Unit in April 2006. Staff writers Jonathan Schuppe, Susan K. Livio, Angela Stewart and Joseph Donohue contributed to this report. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| Subject | Author | Date |
| Re: Why keep bringing this up? The governor was a passenger | Oropan | 15:10:38 04/21/07 Sat |
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