Death of Dale Earnhardt
On February 18, 2001, NASCAR driver and long-time friend of Hinton, Dale Earnhardt, was killed on the final turn of the Daytona 500. Hinton and the Sentinel suspected that, like Kenny Irwin and Adam Petty, Earnhardt's cause of death had been basilar skull fracture (Hinton had recently published a three-part series on the subject of NASCAR safety) and claimed that under Florida law, the state was legally required to turn over Earnhardt's autopsy photographs. Teresa Earnhardt and others claimed the newspaper could not have access to the photographs, leading to a First Amendment legal battle which was finally concluded by an official NASCAR report on Earnhardt's death.
Read more about this topic: Ed Hinton
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or dale:
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)
“Hail, bounteous May, that does inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire!
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)