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Report: Driver in deadly Tesla crash was drunk

Vic Ryckaert
vic.ryckaert@indystar.com
Tesla owner Kevin McCarthy (left) and driver Casey Speckman both had been drinking before the fatal crash Nov. 3, police say

The driver in a deadly, fiery November crash of a Tesla electric vehicle on the north side had more than twice the legal driving limit of alcohol in her blood, according to Indianapolis Metropolitan Police investigators.

The blood-alcohol level for Casey Speckman tested at 0.21 percent, according to investigators and an accident report released Wednesday. The legal limit in Indiana at which a driver is presumed intoxicated is 0.08 percent.

The passenger and the owner of the Tesla, Kevin McCarthy, had a blood-alcohol level that tested at 0.17 percent, investigators said.

Speckman, 27, and McCarthy, 44, were killed when McCarthy's 2015 Model S crashed into a tree and parking garage then exploded near Illinois and 16th streets shortly after 1 a.m. Nov. 3.

The vehicle caught fire and burned quickly. Firefighters arrived to find a 150-yard debris field and exploding battery cells exploding.

One witness told police he was driving slowly past when the Tesla exploded.

"Parts of the vehicle blew into the air," the witness told investigators.

McCarthy died of burns and smoke inhalation, according to investigators.

Speckman, investigators said, died of crash-related injuries. The fire was a contributing factor.

The luxury electric sports car is powered by a 1,200-pound battery pack made up of several thousand small lithium batteries. The force of the crash broke apart the Tesla's battery.

Indianapolis Fire Department Battalion Chief Kevin Jones said rescue efforts were hampered by the exploding battery cells.

"Some of those smaller cells that had broken apart were firing off almost like projectiles around the rescuers," Jones told reporters hours after the crash.

Firefighters are experts at putting out fires in gasoline and even hybrid vehicles, but Jones said they had never before seen anything like the blaze in the Tesla.

"Lithium ion batteries, they burn really hot," Jones said. "To extinguish that fire takes copious amounts of water."

Firefighters freed McCarthy, a former FBI agent, from the vehicle about 20 minutes after they arrived on the scene. He was taken to Eskenazi Hospital, where he later died.

How fast the vehicle was traveling is still a mystery.

Sgt. Doug Heustis, the lead crash investigator for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said police are unfamiliar with the technical properties of the Tesla, like how thick it is and how much it crushes in a crash.

Every vehicle on the road has a "stiffness coefficient," which is a number that tells crash reconstruction experts how much a car will crush when it hits a wall or a tree at a known speed, typically 35 mph.

This number is easy to find for your standard Ford, Honda or Chevrolet, but Heustis said the Tesla is so new and so different than standard cars that he and other investigators aren't familiar with its properties.

The size of the debris field seems to indicate the vehicle was traveling fast, but Heustis said he can't be sure until he runs the numbers.

"You have to be careful about making blanket assumptions that a lot of debris equals a lot of speed," he said. "That's why we are sitting down and doing the measurements, doing the math and making sure you are working with the right numbers for the right vehicle."

Heustis and Detective Darla "Red" Anderson spent an afternoon taking precise measurements of the crumpled hood of the Tesla. They are comparing the data with the hood of an undamaged Tesla of the same year, make and model.

The difference, they hope, will give them enough information to figure out the vehicle's speed at the time of impact.

The Tesla Model S starts at a list price of $68,000 and has a top speed of 155 mph. The top-tier models can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.1 seconds using something Tesla describes as "insane mode."

"This is a new vehicle, a high-technology vehicle, that may present some issues to not only our investigation but to the very first responders," Heustis said, noting the challenges IFD faced in battling the intense heat and exploding batteries.

A representative for Tesla Motors said the evidence is clear that the vehicle was speeding when it crashed.

“We have been deeply saddened by this accident and have been working closely with authorities to facilitate their report," a Tesla Motors representative said in a statement emailed to IndyStar.

"While it can be difficult to determine the precise speed of a vehicle in such a crash, the observed damage and debris field indicate a very high speed collision.”

McCarthy was the founder and CEO of the Indianapolis company that developed the Case Pacer software, which helps attorneys manage their cases. In 2008 he was named to Indianapolis Business Journal's 40 under 40 list when he was president of Sigma Communications, another software company.

Speckman was an attorney and worked for McCarthy as a sales representative.

They were leaving a company event just prior to the crash, according to a blog post on Case Pacer's website.

Call IndyStar reporter Vic Ryckaert at (317) 444-2701. Follow him on Twitter: @vicryc.

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