Police records reveal details of Tiger’s crash

Published 4:00 am Saturday, March 13, 2010

ORLANDO, Fla. — While she waited for an ambulance to take her unconscious husband to a hospital in the early morning hours after Thanksgiving, Tiger Woods’ wife went into their Isleworth home, retrieved two bottles of pain pills and said he had taken some earlier.

Elin Woods also tried to ride in the ambulance with her husband, but the crew wouldn’t let her, saying it was a case of domestic violence — though officials later were confused because they uncovered no evidence to support that.

Those are among new revelations contained in investigative records released Friday by the Florida Highway Patrol following a public records request by the Orlando Sentinel.

Woods was injured in a Nov. 27 crash when he tried to drive away from his south Orange County mansion about 2:30 a.m. EST but bounced off two curbs, ran through a row of shrubs, hit a fire hydrant then crashed into a neighbor’s tree.

Highway patrol ticketed him for careless driving, and he paid a $164 ticket.

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Friday’s records were peppered with new details:

Troopers began searching for evidence that Woods was drunk or under the influence of drugs the day of the accident.

Officers looked for evidence of domestic violence but found none.

Elin Woods told officers she heard her husband’s accident, jumped onto a golf cart and went looking for wreckage.

Officers calculated the golfer’s speed at 29 to 37 mph.

And troopers asked Woods’ attorney for video of the crash, which should have been captured by at least two of his home-security cameras.

The afternoon of the crash, highway patrol troopers tried to get medical records from Woods’ hospital, HealthCentral in Ocoee, according to the paperwork.

A nurse-manager, however, said the records department was closed and troopers would have to come back the following Monday.

Troopers did, arriving about 7 a.m. Nov. 30, the first business day after the crash.

“The director of medical records at first stated their computer system was not working then she stated that they would not provide that information without a warrant on (Tiger Woods) regarding whether or not medical blood had been drawn,” highway patrol Cpl. Thomas Dewitt wrote.

Two highway patrol captains then went to the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office and asked it to subpoena Woods’ medical records, but Assistant State Attorney Steve Foster said there was insufficient evidence.

The following day, highway patrol declared its investigation closed and wrote Woods the ticket.

Officers made some attempt to check for signs of domestic violence, according to the report. They looked but found no broken glass in the mansion’s driveway. When they talked to Elin Woods the evening of the crash, they noted that there were no signs of injuries to her face, neck or hands.

It was not clear why the ambulance crew concluded the golfer’s injuries came from domestic violence and, as a consequence, banned Elin Woods from their vehicle.

Law enforcement officers heard no one at the scene say the couple had been fighting, according to the highway patrol paperwork.

Tiger Woods, during an emotional public apology Feb. 19, said emphatically that his wife had not attacked him.

Friday’s records provide the greatest detail yet about what highway patrol troopers and other law enforcement officers found at the crash scene.

Windermere police, the first to arrive, found Woods laying on the pavement, his wife hovering over him.

She heard the crash, she told Windermere Officer Brandon McDonnell, jumped in a golf cart and drove to find the crash scene, the report says.

She didn’t have to go far. Her husband’s black Cadillac Escalade had come to a standstill after traveling about 150 feet and plowing into a tree in her neighbor’s front yard.

She broke out the vehicle’s rear windows using a golf club, she told Windermere officers, then, helped her husband from the SUV, him leaning against her, and he collapsed onto the pavement, according to highway patrol records.

Officers found the golf club near the driver’s door.

Tiger Woods was unconscious and shoeless. Neighbors brought out a blanket and pillow, and Elin Woods brought him a pair of socks before the ambulance carried him away, according to the records.

Another Windermere officer, Jason Sipos, talked to Elin Woods, according to Friday’s highway patrol paperwork.

“He asked (Elin Woods) if he had been drinking and she stated no, that he had taken his medication earlier, but did not provide a time. The medication was Vicodin,” the report said.

She went indoors and retrieved two small bottles for the ambulance crew.

Sipos saw no blood on the golfer’s face or clothes. The only injury he saw was a cut on the golfer’s lower lip, which left blood on his teeth and upper lip, according to the records.

McDonnell told troopers that he didn’t smell alcohol on Tiger Woods or in the SUV.

No video of accident

Woods’ home has four security cameras. Woods’ lawyer, Mark NeJame, told troopers that he would provide them with video from the system, but after having problems trying to decipher it, apparently never did.

The day highway patrol made its request for video, NeJame said he tried but could not figure out how to operate the system. A few hours later, a woman from his office called troopers, saying they still couldn’t figure it out but would call the next day.

Highway patrol’s paperwork makes no further mention of the video.

NeJame would not answer questions Friday.

According to Dewitt, the trooper who wrote the report, two of the cameras should have captured at least portions of Woods’ drive and crash.

Troopers first tried to interview Tiger Woods the day of the crash. About 6 p.m., two troopers went to his home. Elin Woods let them in, Dewitt wrote.

Her husband had been discharged from the hospital about 1 p.m., and she said he was asleep and could not be awakened.

When troopers asked her to answer questions about the crash, she said she would not without her husband present, according to the report.

She asked them to return the following afternoon. Then she simply walked away down a hallway, leaving the troopers standing, by themselves in the mansion, according to the report.

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