Doug Clark: Batty’s new victims should give his friends pause

What will it take to shake the faith of the Dave Batty Fan Club?

Not this latest pharmaceutical speed bump, I’m betting.

In my experience, fan club members are blindly unabashed when it comes to going to bat for Batty.

Batty is the Spokane firefighter who has now been involved in two fatal wrecks on the same highway.

It still galls me that Batty was hired back on the Fire Department in 1995, after serving just two years for the drunken-driving death of David Cole.

Now a lieutenant, Batty is being investigated for three counts of vehicular homicide after a Jan. 20 crash.

State troopers say the off-duty firefighter drove a pickup that rear-ended a van on U.S. Highway 2. This started a three-car collision that took the lives of Gregory Stueck, Kalen Hearn and Michael Edwards.

Alcohol is not being viewed as a factor. Batty may have been following the van too closely for the icy conditions, authorities say.

But there is now an eyebrow-raising cause for concern: Batty, according to a court document, had prescriptions for four medications, including two painkillers, a muscle relaxant and a sleep aid.

A news story based on the document stated, “Batty told investigators at the scene that his doctor didn’t tell him it was unsafe to drive while taking the prescription drugs.”

This is disturbing. Batty is no average Joe. He is a professional emergency worker. He is trained in first aid. He’s seen plenty of accident scenes. Such a safety expert shouldn’t need a doctor to tell him the obvious about meds that depress the nervous system.

And so it is fair to wonder: Were Batty’s reactions medicinally slowed on that second fatal day?

A drug recognition expert examined Batty at the scene and concluded he showed no indications of being impaired.

But blood test results are yet to be released. They may provide the definitive answer.

Some folks already have their minds made up.

One of the firefighter’s friends told me she thought the newspaper’s coverage was essentially hanging a decent man.

On Monday, I listened to another apologist who called the Mark Fuhrman talk radio show. He went into a song and dance about how drugs don’t always come with warning labels and how the effects of medication can vary from individual to individual.

I incurred some fan club wrath back in 1994 by daring to write sympathetically about Batty’s forgotten victim, David Cole.

Cole worked for the U.S. Forest Service. He collected promotional cartoon glasses. He liked to hunt and fish. Not too long before he died, Cole shot two holes-in-one with the same golf ball.

Cole was driving south on Highway 2 on the afternoon of Sept. 5, 1992. He was headed to Spokane to see his daughter, Tami, who was to be married the next day.

Batty, tanked to the gills, swerved his pickup across a lane and smashed head-on into Cole’s Jeep. Cole, 49, died instantly. A friend survived with serious injuries.

Eleven months after being sentenced, Batty was back at the Fire Department on a work release program.

“(Batty) is behind a desk, going to treatment and saying all the right things people say when they have much to lose,” I wrote.

That got me a flurry of ill-tempered phone calls. A few other critics went the more diplomatic route via letters to the editor.

“I saw (the column) as nothing but a transparent attempt at revenge, setting out to ruin a man,” wrote one woman.

“(Batty) is in the business of saving lives and you are the business of selling newsprint,” sniffed another writer.

OK. I believe you. Dave Batty is one terrific guy. He’s obviously done a lot to rehabilitate himself.

But two fatal accidents? On the same highway?

It does make you wonder.

Maybe what happened Jan. 20 was one of those cosmic coincidences – an unrelated stroke of tragic luck.

Then again … there are four dead men who, if they could speak, just might argue the point.