Man, 23, killed in 1-car crash
10:44 PM 5/21/03
Barry Adams Police reporter

Matthew White knew he had too much to drink.

So when his brother, Sam Petro, 19, showed up Tuesday night at a Sun Prairie bar, White, 23, didn't resist when Sam asked for the keys to his forest green Cadillac.

"He just gave them to me," Petro said Wednesday.

Instead of leaving with his brother, however, White stayed and caught a ride home from someone else about a half hour later.

White never made it to his home in Fitchburg.

The Edgewood High School graduate, and father of a 4-year-old girl, died Tuesday night when the 1996 Lexus he was riding in crashed just before 11:30 p.m. into a tree on Nakoma Road at Midvale Boulevard. The car's driver, Lindsay J. Rice, 19, of Madison, was in critical condition Wednesday at UW Hospital.

Police are trying to determine what role alcohol played in the crash and, if it did, how Rice, who is under the state's legal drinking age of 21, obtained the alcohol. Court records show that Rice, who has had several past driving offenses, was driving with a revoked license.

Petro said Rice was at the bar when he picked up White's car. Petro could not tell if Rice had been drinking.

Because of the severity of the crash, it had not been determined Wednesday if White and Rice wore seat belts, but the car's air bags deployed, Madison Police Officer Bob Reese said.

"Clearly speed was a factor," Reese said.

White is the fourth traffic fatality in Madison this year and the 10th in Dane County, according to police and the Dane County Sheriff's Office.

Police said Rice's car was traveling west on Nakoma Road when it came up the hill approaching Midvale Boulevard. It never made the curve just before the intersection.

Instead, the car hit the curb, traveled a few feet on the grass, went airborne for about 25 feet and slammed head on into a tree.

The impact was so great it lifted the back end of the car almost straight up before the car came down and twisted to the north side of the tree, Reese said.

The impact stripped about a three-foot section of bark from the tree's trunk. Shards of plastic and glass remained at the scene Wednesday along with bouquets of flowers and handwritten notes.

Laura Bakken, 40, a nurse, was watching television because she had the night off from her third-shift job at an assisted living home.

Since moving into her Midvale Boulevard apartment with her husband, Eric, about 2 years ago, she has heard cars screeching to a halt daily as they come up the hill only to find cars stopped at the intersection.

What she heard Tuesday night was much different.

"This one was a lot louder. I heard a pop and then the whole building just shook," she said.

When she ran outside in her stocking feet with her husband close behind, she saw the crumpled car and lots of smoke.

She also saw Rice's arm and head sticking out of the driver's side window. But Rice was encased in the mangled car, preventing Bakken from reaching her.

When Bakken and her husband went to the passenger side, they found White with his eyes open. He wouldn't respond. She found a pulse. It stopped. She began chest compressions.

Nurses from nearby Sunny Hill Health Care Center, an off-duty paramedic who happened on the scene and Madison fire paramedics, along with Bakken, could do little for White. Bo Owen, White's stepfather, said White had a broken neck.

It took firefighters nine minutes to remove White from the car and 21 minutes to pry Rice from the wreck, according to a Madison Fire Department report.

White had just begun working at the Sun Prairie bar, at 121 E. Main St., after quitting a job at Auto Marketing Services. He sold and installed car stereos, televisions and other electronic systems for about the past five years, Petro said.

It was not clear Wednesday if White had been working at the bar Tuesday or if he was visiting.

"He was just a great person. He never hurt no one," Petro said. "All he cared about was helping his friends and family. It's just unbelievable."