Even though local police have already said Tiger Woods was not impaired at the time of his devastating crash last month, several forensic experts are speculating Woods could have been asleep at the wheel or at least inattentive.
“I would have thought that you would have him evaluated ... to see whether or not there are some physical clues beyond the operation that would point to impairment,” Charles Schack, a former New Hampshire state police trooper who is now president of Crash Experts, told USA Today Sports. “To an untrained person, sometimes the effects are a bit more subtle and require a bit more in-depth examination to bring out the evidence of impairment.”
Woods has told doctors and officials he has no recollection of the Feb. 23 single-car crash which left him seriously injured and his legendary golfing career in doubt. That fact alone, Schack said, would have been reason enough for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to call in a drug-recognition expert (DRE). If Woods had been evaluated, a DRE would have determined if Woods’ blood should have been tested for medications or drugs.
Instead, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said, one day after the crash, there was no evidence Woods was impaired.
“He was not drunk,” Villanueva said. “He was lucid, no odor of alcohol, no evidence of any medication, narcotics or anything like that would bring that into question. So that was not a concern at the time. So therefore, obviously no field sobriety test and no DRE.”
Deputies have executed a search warrant for the black box in the Genesis GV80 that Woods was driving.
“We’re trying to determine if a crime was committed,” Sheriff’s Deputy John Schloegl said. “If somebody is involved in a traffic collision, we’ve got to reconstruct the traffic collision, if there was any reckless driving, if somebody was on their cellphone or something like that. We determine if there was a crime. If there was no crime, we close out the case, and it was a regular traffic collision.”
Former Detective Jonathan Cherney, who walked the scene after the crash, told USA TODAY evidence suggests it was “like a classic case of falling asleep behind the wheel” because “the road curves and his vehicle goes straight.”
Woods has been transferred from Harbor-UCLA Medical Center to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Woods shattered the tibia and fibula of his lower right leg in multiple locations. Those injuries were stabilized with a rod in the tibia during a long surgery. Additional injuries to the bones in the foot and ankle required screws and pins.
Woods had been driving a 2021 Genesis SUV on a downhill stretch of road known for wrecks when he struck a raised median in a coastal Los Angeles suburb, crossed into oncoming lanes and flipped several times.
The crash was the latest setback for Woods, who has won 15 major championships and a record-tying 82 victories on the PGA Tour. He is among the world’s most recognizable sports figures, and at 45, even with a reduced schedule from nine previous surgeries, remains golf’s biggest draw.
The department has not released any of the findings.
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