- March 28, 2024
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Longboat Key had its first car crash fatality since 2012 Sunday night on Gulf of Mexico Drive.
Longboat Key dispatch received a report of a reckless driver driving a blue four-door Kia passing several cars while traveling southbound near the 6800 block of Gulf of Mexico Drive just before 9:30 p.m. Sunday.
A few minutes later, police officer Christopher Bauman was dispatched to the scene of a reported head-on collision car crash near Pattigeorge’s restaurant at 4120 Gulf of Mexico Drive.
The driver of the blue Kia, John Edwards, 81, of Bradenton, attempted to pass another driver and drove into a silver, four-door Toyota traveling northbound on Gulf of Mexico Drive.
Bauman found Edwards pinned in his vehicle without a pulse when he arrived at 9:32 p.m. Bauman reported Edwards was bleeding in several places and he was unable to administer CPR.
The Kia was sitting on the sidewalk of the east side of Gulf of Mexico Drive, and Longboat Key firefighter paramedics pronounced Edwards, who was lying in the passenger seat up against the dashboard, dead at the scene.
Less than a minute after Bauman’s arrival, Sgt. Douglas Coffman arrived on the scene and found the driver of the Toyota, Gerald Claeys, 76, of Bradenton, lucid. Coffman asked Claeys to exit his Toyota because smoke was coming from the engine.
Claeys’ car, which was knocked backward, was in the middle of the southbound lane of Gulf of Mexico Drive facing northbound.
Claeys was alert and standing outside of his vehicle when firefighter/paramedics arrived. He suffered no broken bones but had a concussion.
Longboat Key Police Chief Pete Cumming called the crash “very unfortunate.”
The Sarasota Police Department was called to investigate the scene because of the fatality.
Bauman and Coffman hung crime scene tape on both lanes of the intersection to close the road, which didn’t reopen until 4:13 a.m. Monday.
Mayor Jack Duncan called the fatality “a tragic situation” in an email Monday morning to Town Manager Dave Bullock.
“Please thank the officers and the paramedic team for their quick response in getting the surviving party to Blake Medical Center,” Duncan wrote.
Both cars were towed from the site after the crime scene unit finished its investigation.
Sarasota police will release a complete report in a couple of weeks.
It’s the first car crash fatality on the Key since the evening of Jan. 28, 2012, when Jo Schatterman, 73, of Elk Grove Village, Ill., was returning from St. Armands Circle on the trolley with her sister, Myra Sandler.
The trolley dropped them off across the street from Sandler’s unit at the Islander Club in the 2200 block of Gulf of Mexico Drive, and the two waited until the northbound lane was clear to cross to the middle of the road, where they waited for traffic to clear in the southbound lane.
Schatterman was struck by an SUV when she crossed the southbound lane.
That fatality prompted discussions by the town and the Florida Department of Transportation for ways to promote pedestrian and bicycle safety. It also led FDOT to approve four crosswalks along Gulf of Mexico Drive planned for construction by the end of the year.
Enhanced lighting for Gulf of Mexico Drive is labeled a top priority for future road improvements, and the town is discussing pedestrian-friendly roundabouts at Broadway and Longboat Club Road on Gulf of Mexico Drive with FDOT.