UCLA Bruins

[eCat]

[AlabamAlum]

Most of the folks in that hood played the leprechaun thing off as a joke, like the one who said it was probably a crackwhore and the guy who said he was Irish and had a special leprechaun flute.

[TheBigMook]

I dunno, he played that flute pretty well.

[eCat]

that wasn't no flute, that was a pipe!

[Jungle Rat]

Looked like a bong I made in High School

[eCat]

I watched a documentary last night on HBO called "There is something wrong with Aunt Diane"

Several years ago a woman returning from a camping trip drove a van full of kids down the wrong side of an interstate resulting in a head on crash at 70mph killing her, 4 kids and 3 people in the car she hit.

The toxicology report came back that she had a blood alcohol content of .19 and had THC in her system.

The surviving family was adament that she was not a drinker or smoked pot.

At first while I watched it I believed that the county coroner botched the autopsy, mixed up DNA or whatever.

The family hired a private investigator who shook them down for about $30K and didn't follow thru on the tests ( or at least that was the impression you got)

As the documentary progresses, the husband admits that they kept a bottle of vodka with them on the camping trips and then he admits they occasionally smoked pot but they were still convinced that was not her.

Then they find out she had an abscessed tooth, and they piece together that what likely happened is her tooth started really hurting, she couldn't find pain reliever at the local gas station and decided to down a few shots of vodka to relieve the pain. The pain didn't subside and she continued to drink essentially taking in the equivalent of 10 shots of alcohol.

They still didn't believe it though. Finally they call the private investigator and he was like - listen, I didn't want to tell you but she was drunk and the tests confirm it.

I thought it was interesting to watch the family continually get presented with fact after fact and it chip away at their resolve that this woman wasn't capable of doing that and the stress that added to them.

Of course the documentary led me down that path but I came to the conclusion that she drank to dull the pain of the tooth pretty quickly while the family members just wouldn't accept it until the investigator told them point blank they were wrong. If you weren't emotionally attached to it, it was a logical assumption.

[AlabamAlum]

Sounds interesting, eCat. I've seen people refuse to accept an untoward act a family member has committed. Denial is a powerful thing.

[eCat]

I often think about this kind of thing

I bet not wanting to be a burden to her family, not wanting to be labeled with a "I can't even count on her to drive the kids home" reputation, instead of pulling over and calling for help (she actually did but she was incoherent and then decided to drive again leaving her cell phone on the side of the road) she probably thought that she had to get those kids home and she'd just fight thru the pain of a toothache.

A similar scenario probably happens 2000 times a day in America but in this example it led to 4 kids dying in a fiery car crash.

Of course with her being the ultra responsible person that she is (and IMO, died trying to uphold that reputation) the family believes the abscessed tooth caused her to have a stroke while driving, rendering her still competent to drive a vehicle but incapable on monitoring her alcohol intake while driving the vehicle.

[Bklyn]

I remember that when it happened. I think the woman was driving from Westchester NY to Long Island or something like that.

[AugustWest]

I thought it was interesting to watch the family continually get presented with fact after fact and it chip away at their resolve that this woman wasn't capable of doing that and the stress that added to them.

kind of like the info being presented over and over to wal-mart unc fans except the truth still hasnt dented their diamond hard skulls.

[Owlman]

saw that documentary last night as well. On wiki, it said that at some point she pulled over and one of the nieces (age 8) said that she was having difficulty seeing and was somewhat disoriented - this to the brother or husband, who told her to wait until he got to her. She had 2 of her own children (2, 5) and 3 of her nieces, the oldest age 8. Only the 5 year old son lived.

[AugustWest]

tragic story.

[Owlman]

I jumped on my 17 y.o. son about it this morning for asking why was the guy who pulled one of the little girls out of the car was crying, "it wasn't his child?"

[eCat]

Did you start out thinking that she wasn't drunk when you watched it.

I was like WTF when the guy mentioned the vodka bottle halfway thru the show

[Owlman]

I rememberd the story when it happened. So I was expecting that there was some metabolic disorder or something.

The family is just in denial and probably was in denial even before the accident.

[Jungle Rat]

[youtube]BMFPh_ZrrjE[/youtube]

[TheBigMook]

Thank you Youtubes!

[youtube]FYbAWZ8yPks[/youtube]

[Saint]

I thought it was interesting to watch the family continually get presented with fact after fact and it chip away at their resolve that this woman wasn't capable of doing that and the stress that added to them.

kind of like the info being presented over and over to wal-mart unc fans except the truth still hasnt dented their diamond hard skulls.

why are UNC fans called walmart unc fans over and over by state fans? everyone who grew up in NC knows that State fans are by and large country people, the kind who support Walmark and all its endeavors. are you waxing towards elitism here, augie?

[AugustWest]

[AugustWest]

we call 'em wal marters because you have a huge fan base that has no ties to the university what so ever. most of them have little to no education so they're poor so they buy their unc apparel at wal mart, and because a lot of unc's graduates are now employed by wal mart or mcdonalds.