Festivals, carnivals and other public events can often bring out large crowds of people to a site. When a festive atmosphere is a part of an event, the risk of an accident seems to rise. Police say that a man was killed Sunday night when people were beginning to leave after a Jason Aldean concert on Montage Mountain.
Authorities say that the man, a 33-year-old Dunmore resident, was walking when he was struck by a Jeep. Lackawanna County authorities say that the man suffered traumatic injuries in the pedestrian accident.
He was taken to Geisinger Community Medical Center, but doctors were not able to save the injured man. Authorities say that he died at the hospital about 41 minutes after he was struck in Montage Mountain.
Officials closed down the scene to open an investigation. A woman who had been driving the Jeep was taken into custody after the wreck. Authorities have not filed any charges against the 23-year-old woman. Samples were taken after the crash, and blood tests results have not been completed, although authorities suspect that alcohol may have been involved in the fatal wreck.
While officials are looking to reconstruct the events surrounding the fatal accident hoping to gain clues as to what may have occurred, authorities generally have criminal charges in mind when investigating such incidents. While these kinds of investigations are important, the goals of public safety investigations are directed more generally to public functions than to individual concerns.
Accident victims, or the family of a fatal accident victim, may have different questions about a wreck that may not be answered from a public safety investigation. An independent probe may provide additional information for victims or their families. Often, the standards and rules used in civil proceedings may differ from those in public safety and criminal probes.