Tiger Woods unlikely to face any criminal charges says LA County Sheriff
County Sheriff who attended Tiger Woods' car crash: "We don't contemplate any charges whatsoever."
Tiger Woods is unlikely to face any criminal charges as a result of his car accident on Tuesday, that saw his Genesis SUV speed across the opposite carriageway before rolling over multiple times.
It was confirmed that Woods was rushed to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center where he underwent surgery to attend extensive damage to his leg and the local authorities indicated that there was no sign that the 15-time major champion was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
"We don't contemplate any charges whatsoever," said Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva. "This remains an accident; an accident is not a crime. They do happen, unfortunately.
"This is what it is, an accident. A reckless driving charge has a lot of elements to it. This is purely an accident. There will be a cause of it and there'll be a vehicle code attached to the cause, but that's an infraction and reckless driving is actually more than an infraction.
"It's a misdemeanor crime that has a lot of elements attached to it. There's nothing like that here."
Woods survival from the crash was helped by the car's interior safety features, as well as the fact that the 45-year-old was wearing a seatbelt.
These details were revealed by Deputy Sheriff Carlos Gonzalez, who was the first of the authorities to attend the scene of the accident, with Gonzalez not realising at first that it was Woods who was in the middle of the wreckage.
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"So I ran over, and I'm able to get my upper body through the windshield, but it was dark inside the vehicle and all the deputy could see was a pair of eyes," Gonzalez told the NBC Today show.
"My first role as a first responder is to assess the passenger, the occupants, of the vehicle and I want to keep them calm as well. So I asked him, 'Can you tell me your first name?' He looked at me and he said, 'Tiger'.
"And it took me a half-second, but I saw his face and I thought, 'Oh yeah, you're Tiger Woods'. But of course, I've got a job to do, so I immediately went into assessment questions to gauge what his condition was in and what his mental state was at the time.
"I kept him talking I asked him basic things to gauge his mental state, just to see if he was aware of what had occurred."
