Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Galena accident victim dies of natural causes

Sheriff’s office investigating possible delay in 911 notification


By TERRY SMITH
Express Staff Writer

A Twin Falls couple was returning from an outing at Alturas Lake on Sunday afternoon when the driver, 60-year-old Dennis Lawrence Schmidt, lost consciousness on the north side of Galena Summit. The vehicle ran off the roadway, up an incline and crashed into some trees. Schmidt was pronounced dead at the scene, possibly from a heart attack or stroke. Photo by David N. Seelig

The Blaine County Coroner's Office confirmed Tuesday that a Twin Falls man died of natural causes, possibly a heart attack or stroke, in a single vehicle crash Sunday afternoon on the north side of Galena Summit.

Meanwhile, the Blaine County Sheriff's Office is investigating a possible delay in receiving a 911 emergency call after the accident occurred.

"Maybe having a cell tower up there," said sheriff's Lt. Jay Davis, referring to a proposed 90-foot Galena Summit cell tower application that was denied last week by the U.S. Forest Service.

Sheriff's deputies and Ketchum Fire Department emergency medical personnel were dispatched to the scene of the accident, on state Highway 75 about two miles north of the summit, at 2:41 p.m., but Davis said Monday that investigators had yet to determine when the crash occurred.

There were reports that "citizens on the scene" administered CPR to the man for "approximately an hour" before emergency responders arrived, Davis said.

The victim of the crash was identified as Dennis Lawrence Schmidt, a 60-year-old Twin Falls man. Schmidt and his wife, 54-year-old Susan Ray Schmidt, were returning from an outing at Alturas Lake and pulling a boat with their gray 2002 Ford F350 pickup up the summit when Dennis Schmidt lost consciousness.

The vehicle missed a left turn, ran off the right side of the road, up an incline and crashed into some trees. The sheriff's office reported that both occupants were wearing seatbelts and that Susan Schmidt was uninjured.

Emergency responders initially suspected a heart attack. The coroner's office had not determined the precise cause of death on Tuesday but reported that Schmidt did not die from injuries received in the accident.

"We're certain it was a medical death because he collapsed before he left the road," said Coroner Russell Mikel. "We don't believe he could have been resuscitated because his heart had already stopped."

Mikel said he's concerned about the lack of cell phone service in the area, "but I don't believe that was a factor in this particular circumstance."

"It's not that I don't want better communications up there, but I don't know that it would have saved a life this time," Mikel said.

Witnesses who happened upon the scene were also frustrated by the lack of cell phone service in the area.

"I can't tell you how helpless it felt to be sitting there, half way up the pass, on the side of the road, not being able to call for help," Hailey resident Chrissy Smith wrote in a letter to the Idaho Mountain Express.

Smith wrote that she and her husband Jeff Smith were following the Schmidt vehicle and witnessed the crash. They pulled over about a 100 yards past the accident scene and Jeff Smith ran back to help.

"I am sure the two guys on the motorcycles behind us felt helpless when one chose to go back to Smiley Creek to use a landline, while the other one went to the top of the hill to chase after the man's son, who had been driving ahead of him, since there was not cell service to call," Smith wrote.

"None of us felt as helpless though as my husband and the people who stopped to do CPR and felt the man's life expire under their hands," Smith wrote. "I'm not suggesting that having a cell phone would have saved the man's life, but it did occur to us how many accidents are there on Galena every year? A dozen or so?

"How many people have been in the same panicked predicament without the ability to call for help?"

Chrissy Smith told the Idaho Mountain Express on Tuesday that she thinks the accident happened around 2:30 p.m.

"My husband said when he pulled up his wife was saying 'please help, please help,'" Smith said.

The sheriff's office acknowledged that the emergency call came from a landline in the Smiley Creek area.

The U.S. Forest Service reported that it denied the cell tower application because it would cause "substantial impairment" to the scenic ridgetop.

"A 90-foot cell tower in that particular location would visually dominate the landscape," Sawtooth National Forest Supervisor Jane Kollmeyer said last week.




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