Who hasn't ridden a safari bus/taxi on the winding roads of St. John and thought about falling out of the vehicle on one of those turns?
Well, it happened.
The St. John Source reports a tourist died after falling from a safari bus, on a flat portion of the North Shore road near Maho Bay beach. Her sister said one moment her friend was sitting on a seat, the next moment she wasn't. The bus hit a bump.
Boston.com identified the 20-year-old as Sarah Dargon, 20, of Norwell, Mass. She was working as a summer intern. She was working on her master's degree in education at Vanderbilt University.
The bus stopped, and the woman was found alongside the road. The Source reports she was emergency-evacuated to Miami, where she died. The Virgin islands Daily News said police determined that both women "were intoxicated at the time of the accident." Dargon's family dispouted that descriptiuon of their daughter.
Please read the Boston.com article. In our local media, the VI police are inferring that the victim was somehow to blame because she and her sister were intoxicated, yet the Miami doctors found no evidence of intoxication when they treated her and she was an organ donor. There is no record that the VI police tested for alcohol or drugs. Even if she was intoxicated… wasn’t it a good thing that she took a taxi to get home? My sincere condolences to her family.
So Sad, My condolences to her family as well.
Very sad for the family….VI Police should not try to speculate about things like this….
My gut reaction is that the driver was probably going too fast over the bumpy north shore road. Very fast driving on St. John is commonplace.
This talk about intoxication of the deceased might be an attempt to cover-up the speeding by the driver.
My profound condolences to the family. The victim sounds like a clean cut young lady who should not have died so young!
Safari drivers are always covered. My son had a head on accident with one who was entirely on my son’s side of the road. The safari driver was a retired cop and, luckily, I ran down to Bjerge Gade with a camera and made the investigating cop look at the skid marks. Otherwise, my son would have been blamed. As it was, they still partially blamed him. These guys don’t carry more than the $10K-$10K-$10K insurance, so they’re always the “victim.”
How sad. It sounds like they are looking for an excuse to blame anyone but the person resonsible. the cab drivers on this island think they can get away with anything as in going to fast in a taxi that is unsafe already, and guess what they do. it’s time to make the cab drivers on these islands responsible for their unsafe driving and unsafe taxi’s. my dearest condolences to the faimly.
Why can’t they install seatbelts on the outside seating area of the taxi’s ? Not all the way across…just the outer seat? I know we have really had to hold on to each other a lot of times when going into those curves and downhill so fast. It can be quite scary. When driving rentals…if hubby gets over 15 mph I start slowing him down. Isn’t that a Hoot !!
Such tragic accident! My condolences to Sarah’s family. May her soul rest in peace.
Buses usually don’t have seat belts installed on their seats. That’s why riding a bus through winding and curvy roads is risky. Accidents can come at any time so it’s always best to be cautious. Maybe a law could be made that would require the installment of seat belts in buses.
Although I agree that buses should have seat belts — especially those that drive winding mountain roads — perhaps this accident could have been prevented without one. Condolences to her family and friends.