Federal transportation regulators on Tuesday cited a Walmart truck driver’s fatigue as the chief cause of a crash last year that killed the comedian James McNair and critically injured Tracy Morgan, a star of the television series “30 Rock.”
National Transportation Safety Board investigators, presenting their findings at a public hearing in Washington about the June 2014 crash on the New Jersey Turnpike, said unused seatbelts exacerbated the injuries, and criticized the training of emergency medical workers who struggled to remove Mr. Morgan and some of the other six people who were trapped inside an overturned limousine van.
In addition, the limousine had been customized, officials said, leaving the passengers without any available exits until emergency responders cut out part of a plywood panel that had been installed between the passenger compartment and the cab.
“Their single means of exiting had become inoperable in the crash,” the board chairman, Christopher Hart, said.
Even if that sliding door had worked, it was above passengers’ heads, because the van had flipped onto its side. The officials said they shuddered at what might have happened had the vehicle caught fire.
The crash left Mr. Morgan with a severe brain injury and killed Mr. McNair, 62, who was known as Jimmy Mack. Eight other people were injured when the Walmart truck — traveling 65 miles per hour in a 45 m.p.h. zone as it approached a construction area where traffic was backed up — rear-ended the van and set off a chain-reaction collision.
The truck driver, Kevin Roper, is awaiting trial in New Jersey on charges of vehicular homicide and assault by auto. Mr. Morgan settled a lawsuit against Walmart in May for an undisclosed amount. In an interview on NBC in June, Mr. Morgan said that he was not ready to return to his comedy career, and was still experiencing forgetfulness, headaches and nosebleeds.
Federal officials cast blame for the damage on a wide range of lax training and safety programs, as well as lapses in the emergency medical response. It took around 40 minutes for responders to extricate the passengers.
READ MORE of the original article on The New York Times.
