After 1968 Car Crash, Mitt Romney’s Second Lease on Life
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Mitt Romney. Photo:Brian Rawson-Ketchum.
In France, 1968, republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney survived a horrific car crash in which one of his passengers was killed. Driving the French Mormon mission president, Duane Anderson, from Pau to Bordeaux, their car crashed with the car of Albert Marie, a Catholic priest at the time.
“We were all talking about how dangerous how the highways were and the French highways, as you know, have the trees that line the road, and we were all talking about how dangerous that was,” Romney said. “And literally as we were having that conversation, boom, we were hit,” Romney told The Boston Globe.
Romney’s brother in law, Bruce Robinson flew to France – at the behest of his father in law – to oversee the medical care of the Mr. Romney. He told The Globe in 2007, “Mitt was just coming out of his coma, but his face was all swollen, his eye was almost shut, and one arm was fractured,” Robinson said. “We didn’t have CT scans or MRIs in those days, but we got what tests we could to show that he was OK, and that he was certainly going to survive, although he probably came within a hair of not surviving.”
Witnesses pegged Marie as inebriated following the crash but Mr. Anderson did not press charges for the incident due to a fear of reprisal from either the French government or the Catholic Church.
Mr. Anderson’s wife Leaola was the only fatal victim of the car crash.
10:01 pm
I guess that socialized medicine Romney received was pretty good!
8:40 pm
Romney would not have been looking into the sun. Otherwise, “van remsen” has the right direction. Romney’s story fails to hold water. ***** The Mercedes driven by Bishop Jean-Félix-Albert-Marie Vilnet was in the middle lane, preparing to turn left into Rue de la Poste. Going very slowly. ***** Romney did not have the advantage of seeing the modern concrete traffic divider and the blue-and-white directional arrow. Those had not been installed in 1968. ***** Any visual obstruction, being tired, having a conversation going on in the Citroën DS — The effect of all this was that Romney drove into the middle lane of the road. He caused the straight head-on collision. He was the driver who made the critical mistake. ***** Mrs. Leola Anderson died because she did not have a seat belt. Six people in a five-person car. ***** Someone invented the “drunk priest” they call “Albert Marie.” Someone invented a truck and a truck driver and other local witnesses who attested to the (imaginary) priest being intoxicated. Somehow the police got the diea that romney had been killed. No investigation was registered. ***** And in 2012 we have Rush Limbaugh saying, “Mitt Romney was not at Chappaquiddick !”
8:26 am
Your comment is very interesting and one that I find plausible. I don’t believe Mitt’s story for a minute and I thought it was despicable that he and his friends tried to pin the accident on the priest by saying he was drunk. This is another one of Mitt’s lies.
1:52 pm
the 2007 globe story has a crucial factual error, it states that accident took place on a 2 lane highway, then notes that the local newspaper said the accident was in front of the post office on the north side of Beaulac. the road is two lanes thru the village but becomes 3 lanes AT the post office, 2 lanes south, and one lane north. romney was driving north, in an overloaded car, on an unfamilair road, with his sun visors down, probably do to the setting sun in his face, he wants people to believe the local driver drifted from the left southbound lane ACROSS the southbound left turn lane and caused the head-on collison in the far right, north bound lane, the only one romeney should have been in.
only morman missionaries, who were not at the accident have said anyone was drunk. the statement about not sueing is hearsay. none of the three french citizens in the other vechicle could be contacted for the article.