A mother drank vodka and smoked marijuana while taking a vanload of children home from a weekend camping trip that ended in disaster when she went the wrong way on a highway and crashed into an SUV, killing eight people, police said Tuesday.
Diane Schuler, who died along with her 2-year-old daughter and three nieces in her red minivan, had more than 10 drinks of alcohol in her system and a high level of the main ingredient in marijuana, authorities said. A broken 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found in her wrecked minivan, police said.
The revelations from the 36-year-old Long Island woman's autopsy helped explain how the woman her family called "an accomplished working mother who always put her children before any other priorities" wound up driving the wrong way for nearly two miles on a suburban parkway before slamming into the SUV.
The July 26 crash on the Taconic State Parkway, about 35 miles northwest of New York City, also killed three men in the SUV. Schuler's 5-year-old son, in her minivan, survived.
Investigators said Schuler had been driving erratically on other upstate roads before getting on the highway for the 140-mile trip home.
Schuler's blood-alcohol level was well above the legal limit, and she still had undigested alcohol in her stomach, State Police Maj. William Carey said Tuesday.
Blood tests also showed she had smoked marijuana 15 minutes to an hour before the crash, said Betsy Spratt, chief toxicologist for the Westchester County medical examiner.
"With that level of alcohol ... she would have had difficulty with perception, with her judgment, with her memory," Spratt said. "You start to get what we call tunnel vision."
Police said no criminal charges were planned in the case.
Roseann Guzzo, whose father and brother were killed in the SUV, said Tuesday her family wanted to meet with prosecutors to discuss the case.
"We're outraged by it," she said. "It's a choice she made. And that choice she made to us is like she committed murder."
" Disco Chi..."We are responsible for our actions ! MWO members......this is why alcoholics get so much disdane from the general public ! Stay Sober Mates.....IAD
I will no longer give the BEAST any power over me - he can go straight to hell.
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