Falls County, TX — August 23, 2024, 22-year-old Jesse Auzston Jr. died in a single-vehicle accident on State Highway 6 in Falls County.
Investigators say the incident occurred around 5:30 a.m. on Highway 6 near County Road 121. Preliminary investigation suggests a Subaru Ascent SUV was traveling north through a construction zone on the highway. The driver allegedly entered a curve at too high a speed, then drifted off the road to the right into a ditch. The SUV entered a side-skid in the ditch, then hit a sign and overturned. It rolled several times before coming to rest upright.
Jesse Auzston, a passenger in the SUV, was ejected during the rollover and suffered fatal injuries. The Subaru driver received minor injuries; when interviewed by officers, he reportedly told them he was fatigued after being awake for roughly 24 straight hours.
No further information is currently available.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
I read the same public information that anyone can get, and as much as I wish I had some unique insight about why things happened the way they did I can’t shed more light than reports do. However, I do have some concerns about any accident where someone is ejected from a vehicle. Why? Because experience has taught me that authorities often hand-wave that away by assuming the ejected person was not wearing a seat belt. That kind of assumption can lead to neglecting other possibilities—like a defective seat belt.
Not long ago, for example, our firm got a call from some folks who lost a loved one in an ejection crash. Officials claimed the victim wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, but they knew he was very particular about always putting it on. They asked us to look again, just to be sure they had all the information, and it turned out their hunch was correct: We found out his seatbelt failed when it was needed most.
That’s not to say the same happened in Falls County necessarily, but the other incident and many like it have taught us the authorities don’t always have the tools, time, or training to catch something like a defective safety feature. That sort of oversight is a lot more common than folks may realize. Maybe authorities here were more thorough, but maybe it’d be best to have another look in case something important slipped through the cracks.
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