Steve Preston & Austin Lee - Tragic Accident.

[BILL THE PATCH]

My condolences to family and friends. It's tragic and heartbreaking.

[patches]

My condolences to their family and friends, and their friends here on the USMF.

[Steve B.]

Austin Lee's Celebration of Life will be held at 3:00 PM this coming Sunday, November 8, 2015 at the Tumwater Room, 211 Tumwater Drive, Oregon City, OR 97405.

 

I have no further information, but here is a link to the Facebook page his Father created for the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/987857367940472/

[willysmb44]

I'm starting to see some speculation on another forum, the classic case of someone claiming to 'hear from someone who was there'...

I won't repeat it as I have no idea if it's accurate. In the vacuum of info, people will always try to fill it with what they think happened.

All that said, does anyone have a clue if it's been announced when the investigation will be released? Like many of you, I would really want to know what happened.

[willysmb44]

I wasn't going to post this at first, but I decided to as it's a good photo of Austin.

This was at Armed Forces Day at JBLM...

[TheMariner]

Very sad to here of the lose of two of our brothers. I have my condolences to all who know these two men and to there families alike. Shame to see people die so young, at least they died doing what they loved!!

[Steve B.]

I just got home from Austin's service.

 

It was very gratifying to see all the people that showed up. There were at least 200 people there, with more crammed in the back of the room. Probably close to 300 total. There were several dozen in WWII-era uniforms and another dozen or so in modern uniforms.

 

Lots of people shared memories of Austin.

 

Steve Preston's wife was there, as were several of Steve's friends that may not have known Austin all that well.

 

We should all be so lucky to have a service like this when our time comes.

 

The family is aware of, and thankful for the condolences posted here and elsewhere.

[willysmb44]

I agree with everything Steve wrote (300 is probably the more accurate number as it was mostly SRO when I walked in, and you couldn't park less than 2 blocks away). I knew there'd be several people there but not nearly as many who showed up. At least one guy came all the way down from British Columbia and I heard one guy say he'd driven up from Northern California.

Most (if not almost all) of the guys from my living history group were there, as were many others in WW2 uniform. I've never seen that many people in WW2 uniforms outside of an actual re-enactment. There were so many people there, I never got to speak to his parents, but they voiced their appreciation at how many people who showed. I think it came as a big surprise for them to see so many people there.

I despise when someone passes away and people try to make saints out of jerks, but it wasn't the case here. It was easy to say the nice things people said about Austin. he really was a great kid.

[Steve B.]

Here's a link to the Facebook page for Steve Preston's service next week: https://www.facebook.com/events/183254965348826/

[willysmb44]

Thanks for posting that link, Steve. I'm going to try to make that service as well.

 

FYI, I found out that more than 325 people were at Austin's service. I heard this from a guy in my group who got in there late due to having to find a parking space, and someone from the venue who had been counting people as they went in gave him that number.

 

I found out yesterday what the cause was, from someone who'd gone to a Oregon MV club meeting where the cause was discussed in detail by people who were there when it happened.

The breech ring failed, and shattered, with pieces of course flying in every direction at extreme speeds. I wasn't told where each of them were when it happened, but I'd assume each were sitting astride the breech when the failure occurred. Austin died instantly and Steve passed very soon after.

I now know more about the nature of the injuries than I'd like to know, but I wasn't surprised to hear them (I won't go into that here).

Odd as it may sound to some of you, I just wanted to know if it was a part failure or a procedural error on the part of either of the crew (which I'm glad to hear wasn't the case).

[vintageproductions]

There is still an ongoing investigation as to what happened.

[ustpatcher1a]

I have been a fan of the Smithsonian cable TV show, The Weapon Hunter. They did a show on Tank Destroyers. I'm happy to confirm the two tank destroyer owner's mentioned in that show; Dew Dolan and Russ Morgan were NOT the unfortunate people involved in a live faire incident in the press. I was worried. Their (Dolan & Morgan) tank destroyer is called the 'Avenging Angel', The same make and model of the live fire incident's vehicle.

[garrettbragg12]

I know this is an old thread, and this was on the bottom of the list of worries, but does anyone know what will happen to the hellcat?

 

I posted on many threads my condolences, but at the same time, I can only hope I go doing something I love. I hope the families are doing well.

[willysmb44]

I know this is an old thread, and this was on the bottom of the list of worries, but does anyone know what will happen to the hellcat?

 

I've been told it's still in the custody of law enforcement.

Beats me what the Preston family will want to do with it once they get it back. That's a very valuable machine just to sit in a garage...

 

[WW2JAKE]

 

I've been told it's still in the custody of law enforcement.

Beats me what the Preston family will want to do with it once they get it back. That's a very valuable machine just to sit in a garage...

 

totally speculation, but I can see 2 things possibly happening. the family will donate it... or someone will buy and repair it and continue demonstrating it as Steve and Austin loved to do. I imagine that there is also the possibility it wont be given back to the family for various reasons, in which case I assume insurance would cover that. but if they do get it back I imagine that would be very hard on the family.

[willysmb44]

I can't speak with certainty on any of this, but I do know Steve Preston owned a large towing company in Portland and I'd wonder if his family has control of it now?

A running hellcat is worth an awful lot of money and he had two kids. I wouldn't imagine most people would just give it away to a museum even if it brought back such bad memories. If the family didn't want to keep it, I'd think a sale would be very understandable.

Then there's the liability issue. I have no idea what kind of policy Preston had on it (no normal insurance carrier for a car would touch something like that as Oregon statues normally call for the vehicle in question to be designed primarily for use on paved roads to be underwritten for a normal car policy), but any bodily injury limits would have been reached for Austin's death. Oregon has decent minimums for liability coverages. His family wouldn't have gotten anything else beyond that, likely, whatever that was unless the lawyers got unleashed and likely not even then. I could see Steve's insurance carrier making an effective argument that there wasn't any breech of duty leading to the accident. But that all depends on the investigation on the ammo being the cause of this. If it was, the estate still probably wouldn't take a hit if it could be proved Steve contributed to this incident (I'm NOT saying he did, but there could be an argument attempted if it came to that). Without liability from the operator, all Austin would have gotten would have been paid under Personal injury Protection (PIP) as the 'passenger' in the Hellcat at the time.

Yes, I have handled Oregon auto liability issues profesisonally, just not for an incident like this.

[willysmb44]

I had a discussion with a young man who's been retained by the Preston family to keep an eye out for Steve's stuff (he'd brought a Harley WLA to an event from Steve's collection a while back). This young man was right there when the incident happened, something that is public knowledge to the people who are familiar with the facts of the incident. He gave me a great deal of insight that I wasn't given permission to go into, publically. Let's just say that if he's correct, Steve had very little to do with the incident itself.

The family, I'm told, is keeping everything including the Hellcat (which all the extra removable items were removed and the family is looking to get all that back, as the dummy M2 .50 cal was apparently a very expensive and authentic copy and everyone can agree had nothing to do with this incident).

I am curious, though, if anyone who knows the Preston family can speak for the WW2 Troop Sleeper car that at least at some point was sitting at Sarge's towing, the company that the Preston family still owns. I've seen photos of it and it's not something you hear anyone even around here talking about...

[hbtcoveralls]

No knowledge about the troop sleeper, but on the G503 Steve Greenberg has recovered the Hellcat from the authorities for the family and has it running. He posted some photos of the damage to the breech and the turret compartment caused by the accident. Truly heartbreaking to all involved. Seeing the damage, it's quickly evident what happened. I hope the family keeps the Hellcat and runs it in memory of Steve and Austin.