Daily Record – by Michelle Sahn
Though Dan Langley had a heart attack while driving in Spring Lake Heights, that did not stop a police officer from giving him three traffic tickets.
A little more than a week after the April 1 heart attack, which led to a minor traffic accident, Langley, a 20-year-old Wall resident, received the tickets in the mail. When he went to the Spring Lake Heights Municipal Court to fight them, he and his family figured a doctor’s note would help convince the local prosecutor or judge to dismiss the summonses.
“Please forgive Mr. Langley’s tickets due to his unfortunate experience of having a heart attack seconds prior to his car accident,” stated the note from Dr. Harold Cotler of Wall.
The result? Two tickets were dismissed, but a third was only downgraded — to a $133 fine.
“What’s the charge? Criminal cardiac arrest?” his father, Chris Langley said in a later interview.
Langley pleaded guilty May 16 to the lesser violation of obstructing the passage of vehicles and paid the fine, but he and his parents say they do not understand why the tickets were written and why they were not all tossed out in court.
“We feel the system is just completely insensitive to something of this nature,” Chris Langley said. “How can you charge anyone with anything? Something’s wrong here, and it needs to be fixed. … This could have been any family. This could have been anyone’s son.”
Neither the municipal prosecutor, Colin Quinn, nor police could be reached for comment.
‘It saved his life’
Cotler said physicians believe Dan Langley’s heart attack began before the accident.
Langley was headed to a friend’s home in Spring Lake Heights on April 1. Around 5:45 p.m., near the intersection of Route 71 and Warren Avenue, his car hit a Toyota at a traffic light, his family said.
Langley does not remember the accident, but he and his parents have been told that he got out of his car, walked toward the front of the vehicle, vomited and collapsed.
Chris Langley said he and his wife, Noreen, believe the accident — and a fast-acting police sergeant — helped save their son’s life.
The accident quickly brought emergency services to the scene. Sgt. Andrew O’Neillbegan CPR.
“We feel fortunate because the accident attracted immediate attention. We feel it saved his life,” said Dan’s father. “We’re grateful to Sgt. O’Neill of Spring Lake Heights, because of his efforts. He started CPR. He’s humble; he says it was a group effort. … I can’t say enough about the sergeant. He was at the scene. He went to hospital in ambulance with him.”
Emergency room doctors at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune quickly cooled Dan Langley’s body to stave off brain damage from the heart attack, a procedure Langley’s doctor said helped save his life.
“He was very lucky that he was seen by a fast-thinking police officer and went to a really great hospital,” said Cotler, who is also the vice chairman of the department of family practice at Jersey Shore.
Tickets in the mail
O’Neill did not write the tickets. They were issued later by another officer, Raymond Kwiatkowski, the family said.
The tickets arrived in the mail eight days later, on the same day a defibrillator was implanted in the young man’s chest, the family said.
Chris Langley said he spoke with police after the tickets arrived in the mail, and they indicated they would talk to the municipal prosecutor about dismissing them.
In Municipal Court, Dan Langley initially pleaded not guilty, and two of the tickets — tailgating and unsafe operation of a motor vehicle — were dismissed.
But authorities would only agree to downgrade the third — from reckless driving to obstructing the passage of other vehicles, according to Langley and his parents.
Unlike the reckless driving ticket, which carries five points and a fine of up to $200, the downgraded offense came with no points and a $133 fine.
No one was injured from the accident, and the other driver did not come to the court hearing, the family said.
Dan “had to plead guilty,” said his mother, Noreen. “What choice did he have?”
He paid the $133 fine.
Not back to normal yet
Dan Langley is the youngest of six children. There is no history of similar heart problems in the family, and doctors still are not sure what caused his cardiac arrest, his parents said. He spent 10 days in the hospital.
At the time, Dan Langley, who plays several musical instruments, was working two jobs and finishing his last semester as a mechanical engineering student at Brookdale Community College in the Lincroft section of Middletown. He was set to start attending Rutgers University in the fall.
But because of his medical condition he had to withdraw from school and cannot return to work. He cannot play contact sports. He cannot swim in the pool that has been in the family’s backyard since he was a baby. He cannot mow the lawn or use the edger.
“The doctor said he will be back to a normal life in a more reasonable time, but not now,” Chris Langley said.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201306121923/NJNEWS10/306120015&nclick_check=1
It’s reasons like this that I call New Jersey the Garbage State.
Yep!……been collecting fukushima garbage since the melt-down. everyone should go research how many older americans/some famous died of heart-attacks directly after the fukushima melt-down, after chernobyl a term was coined to describe the damage done to heart muscle after a core breach/meltdown…….: “chernobyl heart”.
i lost an aunt who traveled to china 2 weeks after the melt-down. she flew directly over jukushima-japan. she died of a massive heart attack the day the flew back into the states. the fukushima event is man-made is is a eugenics operation as well as an ele event.
I guess that this is another good cop/ bad cop story. I can guarentee that if he was the son of a law maker, politicion, or the likes that nothing would have ever been said and there never would have been any tickets written.
Their sole function is to be “Revenue Collection Agents” for the state, justice, common sense and reasoning not preferred or encouraged……
Some people call them pigs,and it is because some of them are pigs! But you can rest assured,a prosecutor is a POS ever day of the week!
That happened to a friend of mine here in CA. She had a stroke and took out some of the guard rail and ended up in the grassy area beside the freeway. Wasn’t her fault, but she got a ticket anyway.
. . .