Bridge Tragedy Slips From News Without Any Real Answers

It seems we have let Anne Marie Lockwood, 18, go to her grave without really knowing why.

It's puzzling. Last month, Anne Marie was important to us. On a rainy Friday in June, the Jeep she was driving spun sideways on the Ballard Bridge, flipped over the rail, and dropped into Salmon Bay.

Many stories followed, on TV and in the papers. We reported the astonished eyewitness versions of the vehicle, apparently rear-ended by a truck on the ever-slippery grating, rolling along the bridge railing and then giving way over a faulty barrier.

We detailed the aftershock of her grief-stricken family and friends, the tiny memorial of flowers and messages spontaneously tied to the bent bridge rail, and, finally, the funeral service.

We then moved on. Except for a final story in the paper the other day, we were done with Anne Lockwood news.

I couldn't help but be surprised by the last story. It said, in essence, no truck had struck the teenager's Jeep, nor was the slippery bridge or bent railing alone the villain in her death. In fact, the cause, police felt, was rather prosaic: a "combination of factors."

The story was three paragraphs long. Anne Lockwood's accident, no longer quite so spectacular, apparently was no longer quite so important.

"That often happens," says Seattle police Detective Richard Chapman, who investigated the case. "Without the truck hitting the Jeep, it is `just another accident,' except to the family."

But precisely because it's more common, and more complicated, he suggested, it should be even more important to us. A young girl died, almost before our TV screens. To numbly switch channels or turn the page on her seems to squander both a life and a chance to learn about something that kills so many.

So with Detective Chapman's help, here's the best available version of what happened Friday, June 7:

Anne Marie and a young companion were southbound in heavy traffic shortly after 2 p.m. as the 1980 Jeep CJ7 crossed over the metal-grating draw section at apparently legal speed.

The Jeep began moving to its left. It is unclear whether the vehicle had already gone into a slight skid or was merely drifting.

But as it came off the grated section, the Jeep's left wheels were on or across the center line, heading into the oncoming traffic. Abruptly, the vehicle was oversteered, or began skidding, sharply right.

Though it was now on a concrete surface, Chapman said, the vehicle's skidding increased, with the Jeep fishtailing across the roadway.

"The young woman lost control and I could not determine why," said Chapman, noting Anne Marie had been licensed to drive less than a year.

"There was nothing mechanically wrong with her car, and the dump truck behind her did not hit her.

"The girl riding with her . . . said something like `What's happening?' and the driver said, `I don't know!' "

At that point, skidding either without braking or braking fruitlessly on the slickened pavement, the Jeep slammed at an angle into a high curb and, witnesses said, seemed to come apart.

"Most witnesses agree that at that point it sort of exploded," said Chapman. "Pieces started flying off, it was a strong impact. And then the vehicle sailed up along the concrete railing.

"By several accounts, it teetered atop the rail, then rolled backward off the bridge. The vehicle was upside down as it rolled over, and the passenger had fallen out on the sidewalk - as did the cat that was in the passenger's lap."

The passenger was not wearing a seat belt; Anne Marie, her seat belt on, went with the Jeep into the bay 60 feet below. She died from asphyxia due to drowning.

Chapman, in investigating the accident, said the slippery bridge and bent railing added to the causes "once the vehicle was out of control."

And, once in a skid, the Jeep was difficult to control, in part because of its nobby-tread, off-road tires and boxy specifications.

"The Jeep has a short wheelbase, and high center of mass," he said. "It doesn't make that kind of vehicle dangerous, but it's something the driver should keep in mind.

"Obviously, driver inexperience is something inherent in all of us when we begin driving. We've been trained, licensed, and we can go out there and do it in a normal situation.

"If you are not cautious, alert, and something abnormal happens . . . you begin a chain of events . . . and you have another tragedy."

Common advice, he said. Much too common, unfortunately.

Rick Anderson's column appears Tuesday and Thursday on the Neighborhoods page and Saturday on A 2 of The Times.