Fauzi Jurdi Killed in Aransas County, TX, Car Accident
Aransas County, TX -- March 9, 2017, Fauzi Jurdi suffered fatal injuries following an accident where his van and a pickup collided.
Authorities from the Texas Department of Public Safety reported that the incident occurred around 12:30 p.m. near the intersection of FM 1781 and Market Street.
Preliminary investigations indicate that 69-year-old Jurdi was driving a van southbound along FM 1781. As he did so, the vehicle somehow lost control and veered off the roadway. In correcting the vehicle back onto the road, it crossed paths with a pickup truck. The two vehicles collided.
Jurdi suffered fatal injuries as a result of the crash. EMS officials pronounced him deceased at the scene. The two people inside the pickup were not injured.
Authorities have not indicated what the cause of the accident was. Their investigations are ongoing.
Map of the Area
Commentary
I've said many times on this blog how news reports get things wrong all the time, and this accident is a good example. The report I'm seeing on this says Mr. Jurdi was driving his van in front of the pickup, went off the right side, the pickup passed the van, then the pickup hit the van's passenger side when it veered back onto the road. There are a lot of conflicting details here that make this report, if taken exactly as it says, makes it physically impossible.
First of all, how could the truck hit the van if it passed the vehicle? If the pickup really passed the van, then the van would have hit the pickup, not the other way around. Let's say the pickup did pass the van. In order for the van to get back in front of the pickup, it would have to veer off the road, speed up as it was losing control, then veer back onto the road in front of the pickup.
And let's say that happened. The report says the van was hit on its passenger side. In order for that to happen, the van would have to veer to the left to get back on the road, then spin around 180 degrees so its right side was facing the truck. How in the world is that going to realistically happen?
The simple answer is it probably didn't, and the news report just got some of their details wrong. Maybe they meant to say that the van got hit on it's driver's side in the rear-passenger area. Maybe they meant that the van went off the left side of the road, coming back on with its passenger side facing the pickup. Maybe they were wrong that the pickup passed the van in the first place. There's really no way to be sure, and that's the problem.
Even on simple fact patterns, news reports can make mistakes. This can be something as simple as the name of a road to something as crucial as which vehicle ran a stop sign or cross the center line. In order for victims and their families to know exactly what happened, there needs to be a thorough, independent investigation. By having a third-party professional outside of police and news outlets look at the accident, those affected by a car crash give themselves the tools and experience to uncover any and all factors surrounding a crash. Whether this results in a claim is not what matters. What matters is that those affected by the accident have an opportunity to move toward a resolution during their time of struggle.
--Grossman Law Offices
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