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Conflicting report Independent expert says Earnhardt died from head whip
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Dale Earnhardt died when his head whipped violently forward in the seconds after his car hit a wall going 150 mph at the Daytona 500, an independent medical expert has concluded. Earnhardt didn't die from striking his head on a steering wheel because of a malfunctioning seat belt, as NASCAR officials have suggested, Dr. Barry Myers said in a report released to the Orlando Sentinel on Monday. "As such," Myers wrote in the four-page report, "the restraint failure does not appear to have played a role in Mr. Earnhardt's fatal injury." Myers, a professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University, reached his conclusion after reviewing autopsy images of Earnhardt two weeks ago. His report was the culmination of an agreement between the Sentinel and Dale Earnhardt's widow, Teresa. Teresa Earnhardt successfully sued to have the autopsy photos sealed four days after Earnhardt died at the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18.
At the time, autopsy photos were public records in Florida, but Gov. Jeb Bush signed a measure late last month making it a felony for a medical examiner to make the photos public. The Sentinel and the Sun-Sentinel of South Florida challenged the constitutionality of the new law in a lawsuit filed late last month. The Sentinel protested the sealing of the Earnhardt photos in February, saying it wanted its own medical expert to view the photos for an investigative series the newspaper was writing on NASCAR safety. The Sentinel and Teresa Earnhardt reached a settlement that allowed Myers to view the images, which would then be sealed permanently. A University of Florida independent student newspaper, a Deland-based Web site and the Volusia County Medical Examiner's Office, however, have challenged the legality of having the photos permanently sealed. A hearing is scheduled later this month that will also address the constitutionality of the new law on autopsy photos. Myers was asked to evaluate whether Earnhardt's skull fracture resulted from his head whipping forward, a blow on the top of the head, or, as NASCAR had suggested, a broken seat belt that allowed the driver to strike his head on the steering wheel. Speedway physician Steve Bohannon, one of the emergency-room doctors who worked on Earnhardt after the crash, said he thought the faulty belt allowed Earnhardt's head to strike the steering wheel of his Chevrolet. The force of the blow cracked the base of his skull and caused massive head injuries, said Bohannon, a NASCAR expert. But NASCAR president Mike Helton, in a statement released Tuesday, denied that the sanctioning body had ever blamed the racing legend's death on a broken seat belt. "No one in NASCAR has ever suggested what may have happened in this accident other than to say in our preliminary investigation we found issues of concern involving the occupant restraint system," the statement said. In his findings, Myers sided with other racing and medical experts who told the Sentinel that Earnhardt likely died because his head and neck were not held securely in place. Earnhardt suffered eight broken ribs, a broken breastbone and abrasions over the left hip and left lower abdomen, indications that the seat belt functioned properly through much of the crash, holding back Earnhardt's body, Myers concluded. What killed Earnhardt, Myers concluded, was the weight of his unrestrained head whipping forward beyond the ability of his neck muscles to keep it from snapping away the base of the skull. The autopsy found that the underside of Earnhardt's chin struck and bent the steering wheel, a blow that could have been enough to cause a fatal skull injury. But the head whipping by itself would have killed Earnhardt, Myers said. Myers stopped short of saying that better head-and-neck protection would have saved Earnhardt. But he said such a device had the potential to prevent these injuries, which have claimed the lives of as many as five NASCAR drivers in the past 11 months.
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