Focus shifts to toxicology report and intersection on day two of Whaley trial

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – The trial of Justin Whaley continued into its second day on Wednesday at the Hamilton County Courthouse.

Whaley is charged with vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in the death of James Brumlow in a July 2018 crash in Soddy-Daisy.

Wednesday evening, jurors were taken to the scene of the fatal at the intersection of Highways 111 and 27 in Soddy-Daisy. 

They simulated the route that Whaley took the morning of that crash from the top of Bakewell Mountain, down Retro Hughes Road, and onto 27 towards the 111 intersection.

This followed the second day of testimony inside the courtroom.

The lack of an immediate breathalyzer test conducted on Whaley in the immediate aftermath of the crash was the source of conflict as a toxicology expert gave his opinion on what Whaley’s BAC could have been at the time of the crash.

Justin Whaley sitting at the defense’s consul table, the defendant of the case in a wrong way fatal crash in July 2018 in Soddy-Daisy that led to the death of James Brumlow.

Dr. Kenneth Ferslew says he used a process called retrograde extrapolation to attempt to estimate Whaley’s BAC.

Retrograde extrapolation is the process using a BAC at a set point, for example in this case it’s the .02 BAC recorded four hours after the crash, to calculate to a previous point in time.

Dr. Ferslew shared his estimate for Whaley’s BAC might have been at the time of the crash.

That estimate he said was between .056 and .120.

The defense disputed the accuracy of this reading as they cite the equation used as outdated.

Also discussed at length was the intersection of highways 27 and 111.

A T-DOT safety engineer said in an inquiry he did of this intersection between 2015 and this year, he found that 45 crashes have occurred at this interchange.

Out of those 45 crashes, only one of those was a wrong-way collision, this one.

Whaley’s defense did ask this data set  recorded any near misses, which he said the data set did not include.

The defense argued that there have been potentially other similar cases of a wrong way u-turn that were unrecorded near misses.

Additionally, a Hamilton County medical examiner testified to the nature of Brumlow’s injuries in the autopsy that he conducted.

He said that Brumlow died from a combination of numerous injuries, including traumatic head and neck injuries.

The most serious of them he said was a basilar skull fracture.

Additionally, the first EMT who arrived on scene testified saying when he briefly spoke to Whaley, he smelled a quote “hint” of alcohol but did not believe he was intoxicated.