Chicago Area Local News

(CBS) We said goodbye to our friend and colleague Randy Salerno Wednesday, and now more details are coming out about the snowmobile crash that killed him.

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports on the moments leading up to the accident.

Trying to piece together what happened a week ago Thursday night isn't easy. Alcohol appears to have played a role, but other factors did too. Equipment failure, unfamiliar trails, darkness and speed. 

Twenty-four hours after Scott Hirschey was among the pallbearers at Salerno's funeral, he's back in the hospital Thursday being treated for complications from a lacerated liver. Salerno's family has forgiven his lifelong friend and believe he's suffered enough.

He didn't mean it; it was a total accident," said Salerno family friend Tom Baffes. "He loved Randy. It was a tragedy on top of a tragedy."

Just before the horrible crash into this snowy stand of pine trees, the group stopped at a tavern in rural Sayner, Wis. Its owner tells CBS 2 they weren't there long.

"Maybe a half hour tops," said Eric Leibenstein of Sayner Pub. "They stopped in for a drink and headed back to Eagle River."

"If they were intoxicated, that damage was done somewhere else because they weren't here very long," he added.

Leaving the bar, Hirschey's snowmobile wouldn't start so the two men squeezed onto Salerno's one-person sled. Hirschey told police he had trouble balancing because Salerno, who stood at 6' 6", was so big.

They headed up the street and onto Plum Lake, northeast toward a snowmobile trail leading to Star Lake. They missed the trail, hit an embankment and crashed.

At the scene, a criminal complaint CBS 2 obtained from Wisconsin authorities says Hirschey was "noticeably upset," had a "slight odor of an intoxicant," and had "problems keeping his balance."

Hirschey, 44, of Crystal Lake, Ill., was charged Tuesday night with homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle after a blood test showed he had a 0.225 percent blood-alcohol level about four hours after the crash, according to a criminal complaint. The legal limit to drive in Wisconsin is 0.08 percent.

"A 190-pound man would have had to drink 14 beers in a three hour period," said Lt. Larry Maraviglia of the Harwood Heights Police Department.

But the officer who interviewed Hirschey right after the crash tells CBS 2 that the blood alcohol reading could be deceiving.

"Falling down drunk, no, he wasn't," said Wisconsin conservation officer Tim Price "He was having a conversation with me…"

Price regularly patrols the area, and he believes the crash was caused by "a combination of speed and alcohol."

Hirschey gave varying accounts to investigators about his drinking before the crash, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in Vilas County Circuit Court.

He initially told a sheriff's deputy that he "drank a few beers" that night. Later, when questioned by a warden for the state Department of Natural Resources, Hirschey said he had "maybe a beer" at a restaurant with dinner, the complaint said.

"I take it easy when I'm on sleds," Hirschey told the warden. "I was off balance because I had him on the back."

Hirschey refused to perform an alcohol breath test for the warden, the complaint said.

"I have had a couple of beers and have been told by attorneys before that if you have had more than one beer you shouldn't take the tests," Hirschey said, according to the complaint.

Hirschey was arrested for operating a snowmobile under the influence and told he would have to go to the hospital to give a blood sample, the complaint said.

Hirschey told the warden to take him to jail because he would not give blood.

"I've had nothing to drink within the last hour or so and I am not sure what a blood test would deliver," Hirschey told the warden. "I can't say I have been a saint all day."

Hirschey allowed a nurse to take a blood sample at 3:21 a.m. but said it was against his will. The crash occurred about 11:30 p.m.

Hirschey will go to court the week after next to answer the charges against him. But Salerno's family and friends believe whatever happens there will just make things worse.

"Scott's gonna live with this his whole life. That's pain enough for me," Baffes said.

There are many inconsistencies in the case. That .225 blood alcohol level, three times the legal limit, usually translates to someone falling down drunk, and that's not how police describe Hirschey in their complaint.

Price says there were other factors involved in the crash: potentially blinding clouds of snow kicked up by the snowmobiles they were following, and unfamiliar terrain.

Alcohol, he says, left Hirschey somewhat impaired, but not incapacitated, as the blood alcohol level would seem to imply.

On the Web site snowtracks.com, one sledder asks "How many DIU snowmobile deaths a year is OK in the North Woods ?....nobody cares! Too many drunks on crowed trails and lots of new sledders on rental sleds. I never saw a DNR cop all weekend."

Price, when asked if he had enough manpower to discourage all that drinking and riding, said, "Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine in Chicago and the Associated Press in Eagle River, Wis., contributed to this report.

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