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Visual proof Video shows EMT cut Earnhardt's seat belt after crash
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- The maker of the seat belt used in Dale Earnhardt's car says a fan has come forward with video showing Earnhardt being cut from his seat belt. Bill Simpson, founder and chairman of Simpson Performance Products, which made the seat belt Earnhardt was wearing during his crash at the Daytona 500, told ESPN radio that a fan sent him a video of the crash. "Since this whole thing has surfaced and since NASCAR did their press conference, there's a spectator that has come forward with videotape and it clearly shows an EMT getting into the car with a knife -- and that's what it looked like to me -- like it had been cut," Simpson said. "I have a copy of it now and it's out being enhanced at the moment." A message left with Simpson by The Associated Press was not immediately returned Friday evening. After the Feb. 18 crash, NASCAR reported that a broken seat belt was discovered in Earnhardt's car. The news resulted in at least one racing team dropping Simpson as a supplier, and angry racing fans sent Simpson death and bomb threats. But an independent medical report prepared for a Florida newspaper earlier this week showed that the broken belt did not cause Earnhardt's fatal injuries. Dr. Barry Myers of Duke University studied autopsy photos of Earnhardt for the Orlando Sentinel and found that the seven-time Winston Cup champion was killed when his head whipped violently forward after his car hit a wall going 150 mph. "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' report was the culmination of an agreement between the Orlando Sentinel and Earnhardt's widow, Teresa, who has tried to have the autopsy photos sealed. Meanwhile, a speedway physician who blamed Earnhardt's death on a faulty seat belt now says that he may have been too quick in blaming the restraint system. "I was trying to answer the questions the media and the public had to the best of my ability and I think I speculated more than I should have," Dr. Steve Bohannon, the director of emergency medical services at Daytona International Speedway, told The News-Journal of Daytona Beach. "Sometimes you should just say it's too early to speculate."
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