Irvine Avenue Crash

The first thing the Newport Beach Police Department’s Jim Kaminsky noticed was the debris. Nearly a quarter-mile of it stretched down both sides of a divided roadway.

“It was vehicle parts, vehicle contents. It was landscape, road signage. Everything you can imagine was just broken and strewn across Irvine Avenue,” Kaminsky said this week.

And then there were the kids.

Ten of them had been in the admittedly overloaded Chevy Blazer, but most had been thrown out when it hit the median and rolled. One teen was dead, two had serious head injuries and the rest were in shock.

It was May 23, 1997 — a night Kaminsky won’t forget but one that Amanda Arthur, one of the most seriously injured teens, can’t remember.

Now a captain with 25 years in the Newport Beach Police Department, Kaminsky clearly remembers the night of the crash. News reports at the time said the teens, all students at Newport Harbor High School, had been at a party and had been drinking, except for the designated driver, Jason Rausch.

They were apparently on their way home, heading south on Irvine Avenue just after midnight, when they reached the S curve. Police and some of the passengers later said Rausch was speeding and wasn’t used to the Blazer, which belonged to passenger Donny Bridgman.

Around Santa Isabel Avenue, the car struck the center divider, flipped over and finally stopped upside down in the northbound lanes by Heather Lane, a quarter of a mile away.

It was 12:10 a.m. Kaminsky and Sgt. Doug Thomas were at City Hall when they heard the call for a “code 3” response — with lights and sirens.

They arrived first.

“Our first thought, obviously, is we need to find out who’s injured and what kind of medical aid we need to render,” Kaminsky said, recalling the scene.

Soon the fire units began to arrive and help the officers with triage. They knew right away that Donny Bridgman, 18, had been killed. Amanda Arthur, 17, and Daniel Townsend, 18, were critically injured; the other teens — Devon Carels, 16; Eric Freeman, 18; Heidi Funderburk, 17; David McMillen, 17; Kevy McNeill, 16; and Rausch and William Watson, 18 — needed medical attention.

“I was with a paramedic. He and I reached Amanda Arthur at the same time. She was underneath the Blazer,” Kaminsky remembered.

At first she seemed to have no pulse, but Kaminsky kept checking.

“I kept my hand on her neck feeling the pulse, and I did get a very thready pulse, so I called the paramedic back over and he said, ‘Yeah, she is alive.’ ”

Today, Amanda, who is now married with the last name Edwards, is very much alive and glad of it. She gave birth to her daughter, Audrey, on Christmas Eve and loves being a mom.

After the crash, she spent nearly three months in a coma and never fully recovered her physical abilities. But she said caring for the baby has forced her to use her right arm, which she had trouble with before.

She credits much of her early recovery to her brother. When she first awakened, she couldn’t do much. She’d follow people with her eyes as they came into the room.

“My brother, he was there every day,” she said. “He was always there and pushing me — ‘Come on, Amanda, put your hand here and sit up.’ ”

She had to keep asking her mother what had happened because she’d hear about it and then forget.

While she was trying to get better, the community came together to help. Singer Bill Medley held a benefit concert to help with medical bills. Fellow students named Amanda homecoming queen. And the cast of “Beverly Hills, 90210” — her favorite show — sent her a birthday cake.

But the goodwill didn’t last. Many people took sides when Rausch was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter and faced trial, and when five of the teens’ families filed claims against the city alleging Irvine Avenue was unsafe. Those claims were later rejected.

“In the courtroom you had a mixture of parents and friends and relatives, and there were feelings back and forth of fixing blame on Jason Rausch and pity … and sympathy for the whole situation,” Kaminsky said. He testified at Rausch’s trial that he was standing in the street waiting for a medical helicopter when landscape sprinklers came on, meaning the road wasn’t wet before the crash.

Some also criticized the teens’ behavior that night, even though police said Rausch was sober.

“Many people made assumptions about our parents’ parenting skills, which was very hurtful,” crash survivor Kevy McNeill wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Pilot recalling the crash. “Many people were supportive as well. It was just a tragic experience.”

In May 1998, Jason Rausch was sentenced to three years’ probation, fined and given community service. Daniel Townsend, who sustained head trauma in the crash, was arrested in 2003 on suspicion of threatening to kill a friend’s mother and Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona. His family said then that he had never fully recovered from his injuries, and he was later given probation.

Ten years on, the wounds have healed for some. Kevy, who still lives in Newport Beach and works for an Irvine printing company, wrote that she still thinks about that night. But since then, she said, “we all did a lot of changing because we were all just kids at the time.”

Amanda said she doesn’t mind talking about the crash. “I have some deficiencies, but it was my choice to hop in that car, and it’s nobody’s fault,” she said.

The only thing Amanda feels bad about is Donny Bridgman’s mom, she said.

“She lost her son, and she’s grieving over it, and I’m getting all the publicity,” she said.

Others just want to let it rest. The mother of one of the kids, who declined interviews, said, “It’s 10 years old, and life goes on. It’s hard to move on when people keep calling and bringing up negativity in your life.”

Looking ahead, Amanda and Kaminsky plan to meet and talk over a cup of coffee. It will be the first time he’s seen her since the night of the crash, and her first time properly meeting the officer who may have saved her life.

“I was really torn between calling her and not because these individuals have gone through a lot of tragedy with this accident. And [it] being 10 years old, I was hesitant to open any wounds,” Kaminsky said. “But there are certain blanks that she can’t fill in, and if I can help her with that, that’s fine.”

Amanda, Kevy and Kaminsky said they’ve held onto the lesson that a foolish or careless decision can alter or end even a young life.

Kaminsky hopes people remember that as students get ready for prom-night parties, graduation and summer. He said he thinks the story of the 1997 crash has been handed down to new groups of kids.

“I would doubt that there’s a lot of students that don’t know what happened on Irvine Avenue 10 years ago,” he said.