Death
On June 20, 2011, at around 3:30 a.m. EDT, Dunn and Zachary Hartwell, a production assistant on Jackass Number Two, were killed when Dunn's Porsche 911 GT3 veered off the road and hit a tree in West Goshen Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Dunn was 34 years old. Hours before the accident, Dunn had posted a photo to his Twitter account of himself and Hartwell drinking at a West Chester bar. Dunn was identified in the police report as the vehicle's driver, and a subsequent toxicology report showed Dunn had a blood alcohol level of 0.196% — more than twice the state's legal limit of 0.08%. The police report stated "...that speed may have been a contributing factor in the accident..." and preliminary investigations suggested that the car had been traveling between 132 and 140 miles per hour (212 and 230 km/h) in a 55 miles per hour (89 km/h) zone. The accident happened in the same location that Dunn had previously rolled another vehicle in 1996.
In August 2012, the parents of Zachary Hartwell filed a civil suit in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, naming the co-administrators of Dunn’s estate as defendants, along with Barnaby’s West Chester, the Pennsylvania bar where Dunn drank prior to the fatal crash. The suit claims negligence and recklessness, as well as wrongful death in the incident that killed 30-year-old Hartwell.
The plaintiffs claim that Dunn displayed negligence and recklessness in failing to have his vehicle under adequate and proper control, operating his vehicle under the influence of alcohol, operating his vehicle at an excessive rate of speed and violently veering off a road and into a tree, among other alleged transgressions. They are seeking unspecified punitive and compensatory damages, as well as interest, court costs and "delay damages as the law may allow."
Read more about this topic: Ryan Dunn
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