anyone hear about this. SUPER shitty, especially since the guy was drunk. It makes me so fucking angry. Good samaritans get fucked too. :tdown:
CATTARAUGUS INDIAN RESERVATION - Like his brother next door, Mike Schindler heard the Sunday night crash, the one that killed a 21-year-old motorcyclist, and ran outside to see what had happened.
His brother, Arthur Schindler Jr., already had rushed to the scene and told him to call 911.So Mike Schindler ran back inside, grabbed his telephone and called 911. Just then, he saw another driver who had stopped to help waving her arms in an attempt to stop a Ford Taurus station wagon heading north on Route 438.
“I was telling the lady on 911, here comes the car that’s going to hit them all,” Mike Schindler said. “I saw her hit them all. I saw the impact. She never hit her brakes or anything.”
Mike Schindler watched the vehicle strike all three people: the motorcyclist, his own brother Arthur, 43, and Arthur’s girlfriend, Amy Jimerson, 33, the woman who had stopped to help.
First, he ran over to check on his brother.
“He was laying on the road. He was still breathing. I got a towel, tried to comfort him and told him to hold on, help was coming. But he was bad. . . . He didn’t last long, maybe five minutes.”
Then he turned his attention to Jimerson.
“Amy was alive, too,” he said. “They tried to help her, but she passed, too.”
Erie County sheriff’s deputies say they believe the motorcyclist - Barton Mohawk, 21 - was killed in the first crash, at about 9:05 p.m., when his motorcycle collided with a van backing out of the driveway on Route 438, about 10 miles south of Route 5. The impact threw Mohawk from the end of the driveway to the other side of the road.
Deputies located the van driver, James Golden, 22, about three hours after the accident and charged him with driving while intoxicated, driving with a suspended license and leaving the scene of an accident.
The Taurus driver, Annelese Weyand, 18, of Gowanda, told deputies that she did not see the people in the roadway, shortly after sunset.
“At this point, there’s no indication that charges will be filed [against her],” Sgt. Thomas Daugherty of the sheriff’s Accident Investigation Unit said. “But we’re still investigating.”
All night Sunday and into late Monday, friends and loved ones of the three people killed gathered at the crash site, in the Pinewoods section of the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, to pay their respects.
Mostly, they paid tribute to Arthur Schindler - “JR” for junior, to most people, but “June” to his brothers.
Several said they were struck by the irony of his death. He always urged drivers to slow down in Pinewoods, where the speed limit was 55 mph along a residential two-lane road, and to watch out for bikes.
He was known to get in his own truck and chase down speeding truckers to warn them to slow down. He also kept an eye on Pinewoods Field across the street to prevent rowdiness.
“June was concerned about everybody’s safety all the time,” said another brother, Daniel. "No matter what went on, no matter how crazy it got, he knew it would come around and everything would be all right.
“He was so cool, so calm, sometimes you even wondered if he cared.”
But as friends and family gathered at the crash site, not a person was surprised that Schindler would have been the first to run to the crash site, to comfort the motorcycle operator and try to keep oncoming cars from running over him again.
“That was June,” Daniel Schindler said. “He would always talk about the troops, his friends. If anybody needed help, he’d get the troops and help them.”
Sheriff’s officials were calling Arthur Schindler and Jimerson the Good Samaritans in this case. But that didn’t comfort those who mourned Monday.
“He died a hero,” said Jasper Marshall, a good friend. “But how’s that going to be a comfort to me? My best friend is dead. He’s not going to be here tomorrow. He’s the guy who made me what I am today, a Local 6 ironworker.”
Throughout the day Monday, friends and loved ones gathered at the crash site, outside the Schindler family residences. They put up a tent. They brought food - and their condolences. Tears were shed, people told stories and laughed, and some media members were met with harsh words.
It was all part of the grieving, an informal wake.
“This is one big community,” Daniel Schindler said. “Everybody here has known everybody all their lives. That’s why they’ll all be here.”
:tdown: