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Tuesday, June 5
Doctor described photos to Earnhardt's widow
Associated Press

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A Daytona International Speedway doctor testified in a deposition Monday that the Dale Earnhardt autopsy photos were very graphic and disturbing.

Dr. Steve Bohannon, one of the doctors who worked on Earnhardt after his fatal crash Feb. 18, was the only person outside Volusia County's medical examiner's office who viewed the photos before they were sealed.

He told attorneys on Monday that he talked to Earnhardt's widow about a week after she filed a lawsuit to stop the photos from being made public. He described the photos to Teresa Earnhardt as graphic and said they showed Earnhardt's naked body and its dissection.

The Independent Florida Alligator, a University of Florida student newspaper, is challenging a temporary injunction that prohibits the autopsy photos from being made public.

A hearing on the challenge scheduled for next Monday also will test the constitutionality of a new state law restricting the release of autopsy photos. Teresa Earnhardt, who sought the injunction, is expected to testify.

The Alligator has suggested in court papers that NASCAR may have convinced Teresa Earnhardt to have the photos sealed to protect itself against a wrongful death lawsuit. Under questioning Monday, Bohannon said he knew of no instance when NASCAR asked her to file the lawsuit.

"It proves what we've been saying all along that there's no coercion on Mrs. Earnhardt," said Skip Eubanks, an attorney for Teresa Earnhardt. "It disproves ... what others have been saying that NASCAR played some role in this."

Bohannon admitted, however, that after viewing the photos Feb. 21 he met immediately with NASCAR president Mike Helton without an appointment to report what he had seen.

"He said Helton was going to pass along his observations to Teresa Earnhardt," said Tom Julin, an attorney for the Alligator.

A day later at a NASCAR-sponsored news conference in Rockingham, N.C., Bohannon said a faulty seat belt may have allowed the racer's head to hit the steering wheel. An independent medical expert who examined the autopsy photos later said restraint failure didn't play a role in Earnhardt's death.

Bohannon has since backed away from his earlier comments but testified in the deposition that NASCAR never told him what to say.

In his deposition, Bohannon said he went to the medical examiner's office to view the autopsy photos because he wanted to confirm his opinion that Earnhardt had died from a basular skull fracture.

Several days after the news conference in Rockingham, Teresa Earnhardt called Bohannon to ask him what he thought of the autopsy photos, a move that Julin said indicates she hadn't made up her mind about the photos.

"It tells me that at that time, she hadn't decided whether the disclosure of those photos would be harmful to her," Julin said.

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