Wednesday, March 16, 2016, first responders arrived on scene at Edgewater Casino in Laughlin, Arizona to find a 19-year-old driver stuck in his smashed up truck after it had fallen from the 5th floor of the casino parking garage. The incident occurred around 8:30 am, Wednesday morning. Metro police have released the driver’s name, Marcus Reif.
Reif’s Ford Expedition drove through the concrete protection wall and off the 5th floor of the structure, before landing upside down. Reif was unconscious, but alive when police responded to the 911 call. He was removed from the vehicle and transported by ambulance to the Western Arizona Regional Medical Center. From the medical center he was airlifted to UMC trauma in Las Vegas. Flight for Life helicoptered him to the trauma unit for life-threatening injuries.
There was a dog in the car with Reif, which died due to the fall and subsequent crash. There were also two cats in the vehicle, one survived and the other has yet to be found. According to metro police, Reif dropped his mother off at the casino, where they would be having lunch. Reif when to park the car when the incident occurred.
There were witnesses to the accident; however, there is little understanding for why the incident occurred. Metro Sgt. Richard Strader stated his team, the fatal detail team, is trying to assess the incident evidence to determine what occurred when Reif was parking. It is not the first time the team has had to investigate this type of crash.
Sgt. Strader said, “We’ve actually had collisions like this in Vegas where a vehicle has gone off the top of the parking garage where the accelerator may have gotten stuck… or instead of pushing the break, they accidentally – in a panicked moment – accelerated over the top of the parking structures.