ANN ARBOR, Saturday February 23, 2013, 7:00 p.m. – News monitored via Twitter is chaotic at the moment, with a variety of sources all confirming that there was a horrific crash on the last lap of the NASCAR race at Daytona, Florida today, injuring spectators. The various sources monitored do not agree on details of who and how many people were injured, and how serious the injuries are.
7:10 p.m. A news conference held by track officials states that 14 spectators were transported “off property” and 14 others were treated at the track. The site is http://www.nascar.com/presspass .
7:15 p.m. Jalopnik is live blogging coverage of the crash; they are up to update 18 at this point. They are following and posting updates from Jeff Gluck on Twitter.
7:20 p.m. An AP story repeats the 28 injuries number, and quotes Volusia County spokesman Dave Byron, reporting that “six people with serious injuries were taken by ambulance to Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach.”
7:25 p.m. The Volusia County Professional Firefighters Association is reporting on Facebook, with comments mostly from people local to the area and links to news coverage.
7:30 p.m. Radio Reference for Volusia County has several feeds including fire dispatch, and this alert message:
| MAJOR ACCIDENT 02/23/13 17:05 |
(DAYTONA BEACH – ) DBFR ON SCENE DAYTONA 500, NASCAR HIT FENCE AND INJURING SEVERAL PEOPLE, HELICOPTER REQUESTED [FLA218] |
7:35 p.m. Wendy Venturini from SPEED TV is quoted by Jalopnik confirming that one of the injured is in critical condition.
As Byron Cogdell, the Public Information Officer at Halifax Med Ctr, told me: 11 here, 6 trauma related, 1 was critical. ALL of them stable
— Wendy Venturini (@WendyVenturini) February 23, 2013
7:45 p.m. The Verge is reporting on NASCAR’s efforts to take down fan video of the crash. A short video of the crash scene was uploaded to Youtube immediately after the crash, and then taken down on a DMCA complaint. It is not known at this point whether that was an automated system generating the takedown notice or a deliberate decision by race day officials.
8:10 p.m.
The Verge has updated their reporting with this statement from NASCAR re the video takedown:
The fan video of the wreck on the final lap of today’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race was blocked on YouTube out of respect for those injured in today’s accident. Information on the status of those fans was unclear and the decision was made to err on the side of caution with this very serious incident.
Automated DMCA takedowns at Youtube are tracked by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
8:15 p.m. CBS Sports is now reporting that more than 30 spectators were injured, based on reports directly from hospitals as to how many patients were admitted. They note that “the number of those transported given by (Speedway president Joie) Chitwood was slightly lower than that given by local officials.”
8:25 p.m. Reuters reports that driver Michael Annett was injured and has been hospitalized for observation.
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