Boating Accident/Death off Diamond Island

[pats fan]

Originally Posted by sa meredith

As I very recently stated, the only thing that matters is the fact the lives of the two survivors have changed forever, and another girl has lost her's. You have to feel for them. However, it seems people just want to talk about speed, and the definition of the word "accident".
My take is this....at some point, responsibility is going to be accessed by the proper authorities. A woman has died, after all. And the finding will not be "oh, just an accident". I'm sorry. That just won't be the case. As a precident, I would look to the incident (not accident) involving the son (as opposed to the daughter) of the owner of a Marina (Irwin or Channell, I forget) who ran over two people in Meredith Bay at night, killing one. He was held responsible for it. Yes, he was drunk. But if he was not drunk, I believe he still would have been held responsible for the "incident".
This is a terrible, terrible thing that has happened. But unless there is severe mechanical failure, someone will be held accountable. Simple truth.

I was not there when the Littlefield accident occured a few years ago, however, Mr. Littlefield was found NOT guilty of being drunk. It can be your opinion that he was, but you should refrain from stating that he was drunk. Right now is probably not the time for the peanut gallery to be deciding that Erica needs to be held responsible in any legal manner. At this point she is still in critical condition and putting up the fight of her life. Could she have been impared? Speeding? Operating in an unsafe manner? Perhaps. But right now I think it is very disheartening to hear people beating her up when she is in the physical condition she is in. She will have terrible mental and physical scars to deal with from this and right now she needs the community to pray for her speedy recovery and pray for Steph and her family. There are evil people who do horrible things. Erica is a good person who had a horrible thing happen to her, weather she inadvertantly contributed to it or not.