Merry Xmas everyone and a special prayer for Jessica!
I've been keeping up on this site since the beginning and wanted to to add/ touch on a few items that have been brought up.
As an EMT/Asst Cf on a midwest fire dept along with having over 25 years in the auto industry as a body and mechanical shop owner, I have a little knowledge at least with cars, fires, car accidents and working with accident/medical patients.
- starting with the seats, they will only recline back if the(a) lever is activated. However, I've witnessed many times where a person was rear ended hard enough that the mechanical structure of the reclining seat is overcome with enough force as to bend the seat structure. Even with this happening, the seat will stay in a "memory" position as where it was bent. Obviously, the heavier a person, the more the seat would bend when such a force manifested. A force like this can also happen if a person was driving in reverse and hit something. I think you get the idea.
- by looking at the photos of JCs car, IMHO it does not look like this type of force happened. A few reasons, an impact like I mentioned in the paragraph above that would warrant enough force to bemd the seat recliner frame and mechanical parts would have damaged JCs car whereas one or both "quarter panel to rear door" gaps would have tightened up upon impact. That is how uni-bodies react to impacts.
Also, it's apparent that the rear bumper melted away along with any/all plastic and plastic that was on the car. Cosmetically, from the few photos I was able to view, I'm not sure that any impact occurred but maybe some slight damage to the rear passenger side. I would have to view a photo of the same model of car to see the shape of tail light. The door gaps look consistent on JC s car from my perspective.
- as far as someone on the accident scene knowing that an accelerant was forced down her throat or squirted up her nasal cavities? I will say this, I have personally intubated patients out in the field. There is no such thing as a perfect setting to do this but there are many bad settings. Night time being one, weather, environment, scene. Rescue/tower lighting on rescue apparatus, flash lights, etc obviously are not a preferred lighting source when entubating someone. Anyone in the medical profession knows that entubating someone is never easy for many reasons. I personally know that if I was the one entubating JC and noticed anything unusual in her throat/larnyx, I'd take temp mental note but honestly do not know if I could determine if it was a chemical burn, vapor or from extreme smoke, and frankly it is not a first responders job to determine this. Protocol. But someone may have noted such damage to this area in her throat that they assumed this and then word gets around quick.
Of the topic for a second. We've all head burns from eating hot food, right? You would be amazed at the severity of burns in your mouth that you have had and not of known it.
-back to topic, looking at the fire scene, does it look like 4 tire tracks, such as a 4x4 truck going up the hill?
I'm not trying to confuse you with what I wrote above about me not thinking there was an impact but a thought I had was if JCs car was parked at bottom of slope, a truck came up behind her car, made contact with her car lightly then pushed JCs car up the hill. The truck may of pushed her car at an angle therefore the pattern or "four " ruts. JCs car would not have enough power to make a rut or the tire. Ruts may of been caused by something else too such a recovery. Remember, a truck contacting JCs car then pushing is different then ramming. Even 5mph impact would have presented more damage than I was able to see from pics.
That's it for now.
