Project Summary:

This story is part of KXAN’s “Preventing Disaster” investigation, which initially published on May 15, 2024. The project follows a fatal car crash into an Austin hospital’s emergency room earlier that year. Our team took a broader look at safety concerns with that crash and hundreds of others across the nation – including whether medical sites had security barriers – known as bollards – at their entrances. Experts say those could stop crashes from happening.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The woman who drove into St. David’s North Austin Medical Center in February, killing herself and seriously injuring at least five others, had a blood-alcohol level between three and four times the legal limit to drive, along with the chemical compounds of cannabis found in her system, according to an autopsy report released Thursday in response to a KXAN public records request.

Michelle Holloway, 57, died from “blunt head trauma,” according to the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office, which lists the manner of death as an “accident.” She suffered skull and rib fractures and brain bleeding.

KXAN Investigates: Preventing Disaster

Toxicology results found between 0.25% and 0.30% of ethanol in Holloway’s system, which a doctor, criminal defense attorney, and law enforcement tell KXAN is the same as a person’s blood-alcohol content. The report said tests for cannabinoid came back “presumptively positive.”

St. David’s declined to comment.

An email and voicemail left with a manager at the medical examiner’s office were not immediately returned. A woman who answered the phone said they could only answer questions about an autopsy with next-of-kin.

KXAN requested the autopsy report, along with other records from the crash, to better understand how it occurred. Requests for 911 calls and police body camera video were denied citing the “investigation, or prosecution of an open or pending criminal matter.”

An Austin police spokesperson later said the investigation into the crash is “contingent” on the “pending autopsy and toxicology results.” KXAN sent a copy of the autopsy to APD asking about the status of the case now but did not immediately hear back. APD also did not immediately comment on the amounts found in Holloway’s system and whether that may have led to the crash.

Read the autopsy reportDownload

Injured family files lawsuit in fatal Austin hospital crash

The day after the crash, APD said there was no evidence that this was intentional nor the result of a medical episode.

According to a more than $1 million lawsuit filed by the Bernard family against St. David’s HealthCare, Holloway arrived at the hospital with her niece to visit a sick family member. According to the lawsuit, Holloway, a passenger, was asked to move the 2016 white Acura TLX, which was parked at the hospital’s north entrance. The lawsuit alleges Holloway was “unfamiliar” with the car and “accidentally lost control,” crashing into the “vulnerable and unprotected” ER entrance and into the lobby, running over and seriously injuring all four members of the Bernard family, including their two toddlers. The youngest went through the car’s windshield and received hundreds of stitches.

The Austin family’s lawsuit accuses the hospital of “gross negligence” for not having any vertical security posts, called bollards, arguing that could have stopped the car and prevented the deadly crash from happening.

“The safety of our patients and their families, as well as our employees and visitors, is always our top priority,” St. David’s HealthCare previously said in a statement, adding, per policy, “we do not comment on pending claims or litigation.”

KXAN began looking into hospital safety after the crash. We found St. David’s North Austin Medical Center did not have bollards at its ER entrance prior to the crash despite having them at some of its other medical facilities. Afterward, the hospital installed a dozen, including five that appear to have been added after KXAN’s investigation.

KXAN investigators visited 34 major area hospitals with emergency rooms across Central Texas. We found 18 hospitals had bollards, nine had partial coverage and seven had none.

Our recent investigation revealed hundreds of similar crashes across the country in the past decade that could have been avoided with crash-rated bollards, according to experts. KXAN investigators traveled to Texas A&M Transportation Institute near College Station to watch crash-tests and see, firsthand, how effective they can be at stopping the equivalent of a Dodge Ram pickup truck traveling 20 miles per hour.

After our reporting, state and local policymakers are now looking at the possibility of requiring crash-rated bollards at medical facilities. Austin City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly, citing KXAN’s investigation, said she will introduce a resolution on July 18 “requiring safety barriers, known as bollards, to be constructed at any new medical facility” in the city. Council Member Vanessa Fuentes’ office said “she would be glad to co-sponsor” that.

The day after the crash, St. David’s credited a large lobby fish tank for absorbing the impact and saving lives.

“I thank God for intervening there and giving us that protection,” St. David’s North Chief Medical Officer Dr. Peter DeYoung said.

“I wish it was thanking God that there were bollards in front of the building,” Levi Bernard, who was injured in the crash, countered. “Not the thing that attracted us to the center of the lobby.”

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