TIGER WOODS’ ROLLOVER CRASH RULED ACCIDENT
Sheriff says golfer wasn’t drunk or impaired
Authorities rule out criminal charges against the golf star while he recovers in a Los Angeles hospital following a one-car crash Tuesday morning.
A day after trauma surgeons fastened the shattered right leg of golf ’s most famous player together with a metal rod, screws and pins, authorities ruled out criminal charges against Tiger Woods while he recovered in a Los Angeles hospital following a onecar crash Tuesday morning, relief having replaced the worst fears from a horrific scene.
While the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department continued an investigation into the crash in a ritzy Southern California suburb, the department had already determined that Woods was not impaired and that any fault for the wreck would not rise to the level of reckless driving or a misdemeanor.
“This is purely an accident,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Wednesday. “There’ll be a cause of it, and there’ll be a vehicle code attached to the cause, if it’s inattentive driving or whatever the case may be. But that’s an infraction. ... An accident is not a crime.”
Sheriff’s Deputy Carlos Gonzalez, the first responder on the scene, will lead the investigation. Gonzalez already has “all the information he needs from Mr. Woods” after speaking with him at the scene of the crash, Villanueva said.
Gonzalez found “no evidence of any impairment whatsoever,” Villanueva said. Because Woods was lucid, had no odor of alcohol and gave off no evidence of having used medication or narcotics, Gonzalez did not administer a field sobriety test or call in a drug-recognition expert to assess Woods, Villanueva said.
“He was not drunk,” Villanueva said. “Definitely, we can throw that one out. We hold everyone to the rule of law, no matter what your celebrity status is. But there was no evidence of that.”
Authorities will still seek to determine the cause of the crash. It occurred at 7:12 a.m. in Rancho Palos Verdes, as Woods traveled alone to a film shoot at Rolling Hills Country Club, about four miles away from the intersection of Hawthorne Boulevard and Blackhorse Road, where the 2021 Genesis SUV hopped the median, rolled over and came to a stop in an embankment.
Since January 2020, Villanueva said, 13 crashes have occurred at the location, including four in which a driver sustained injury. Woods was traveling north on Hawthorne, down a steep hill before a curve.
“Definitely, this stretch of road is challenging,” Villanueva said. “If you’re not paying attention, you can see what happens.”
Woods was driving a courtesy car from the Genesis Invitational, a tournament Woods hosted, but did not play in because he is recovering from recent back surgery, over the weekend in Los Angeles.
“We’re hoping obviously this is going to be equipped with this black box, and will have some information about the speed,” Villanueva said. “It may be a factor in this accident. You could have driver’s inattention. You could have any type of distraction like that.”
The Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Department’s investigation will take several weeks at least, Deputy Trian Schrader said Wednesday. The investigation, Schrader said, would seek to determine myriad factors: the speed of Woods’ car, the terrain of the pavement, whether any debris was in the road. Did an animal cause Woods to swerve? Did he fall asleep? Was he otherwise distracted?
“Just like any investigation,” Schrader said. “You have to ask 8 million questions and see if you can put it all together and see if you can come to an accurate conclusion.”
The department’s investigation, like any into a car crash involving injuries, probably will include a toxicology report produced by the hospital, Schrader said. It would typically take four to six weeks for the results to return, Schrader said, but it could take longer because of the pandemic.
Late Tuesday night, Woods’s representatives said he was “awake, responsive and recovering in his hospital room” at HarborUCLA Medical Center after emergency surgery to repair broken bones in his right leg, foot and ankle.
Woods “suffered significant orthopedic injuries,” Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Anish Mahajan said in a statement. He endured comminuted open fractures to the tibia and fibula, which means both major bones in his upper right leg broke into multiple pieces and poked through the skin, which increases the threat of infection and complicates recovery.
Doctors inserted a rod into Woods’ tibia and stabilized his foot and ankle with pins and screws. They also relieved swelling in his leg, an operation that experts said would be used to either alleviate or avoid compartment syndrome, a condition that can lead to the loss of a limb if not treated in time.
In the golf world, players and officials expressed relief and gratitude that Woods had avoided a worse fate. Gonzalez, the first officer on the scene, said Tuesday that Woods was lucky to be alive. Peers who had seen pictures of Woods’s crumpled Genesis had feared for Woods’s life.
“I like to take the positives out of every situation,” golfer Xander Schauffele said. “And I think the fact that he came out alive, after taking a look at that pic of the car wreck, is sort of what I would like to take out of it.”