From Progress to disaster. What really happened?
- May 18
- 2 min read
On the morning of July 31st, 2022, 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla took the most legal, ordinary and controlled right turn you could ever make, off of Pearl Road on to Progress drive in Strongsville, Ohio. Controlled, deliberate, 35 miles per hour.
Stop the tape there and millions of us roll over and fall back asleep and never hear about Mackenzie Shirilla. About 30 seconds later, it's likely just as ordinary and hum drum.
20 seconds after that? the vehicle is exploding into a wall at 100 miles per hour and two young men are dead and Mackenzie is clinging to life. That car would have taken almost half, of those 20 seconds to accelerate from 35 or 45 miles per hour to 100 miles per hour so what happened, happened quickly and those 3 young people had very little reaction time.
This is what I believe occurred during that last minute and literally all of the forensic and medical evidence supports this kind of scenario.
Mackenzie Shirilla, aware of the traffic camera, takes the right turn legally and in control. She then begins to accelerate because she has places to go and 35 miles per hour is just too slow. She gets about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way down the road traveling a bit too fast- maybe 45 or 50 when she closes on a car doing the speed limit or maybe even stopped to take a left into the horseshoe (see pin)
Without much of a thought, she whips the steering wheel and punches the gas to out flank the obstruction. That's when the unexpected happened.
Mackenzie's shoe gets stuck between the gas pedal and the brake. Mackenzie freaks out and screams for front seat passenger Dominic Russo to take the wheel while she lurches under the dash, frantically trying to free her stuck foot. Dominick unbuckles and jumps over and begins steering the rapidly accelerating car through the soft "s" and onto the last straightaway. Mackenzie is screaming in panic then collapses on her side from the stress induced POTS seizure and blacks out. Back seat passenger Davion Flannigan, realizing the emergency of the situation, unbuckles, jumps to the front and manipulates the shifter. Dominick hard-rights the steering wheel as the car jumps the curve, in a desperate attempt to miss the building. The car collides with the right side wall.
Yes. All evidence suggests it happened that fast. A freak and rapid tragedy. NOT murder.
Comments