Adacia Chambers: Oklahoma Crash Driver Had 2 Mental Hospital Stays, Dad Says — ‘Nothing They Could Do’
Adacia Chambers, the accused driver in last Saturday’s horrifying Oklahoma State University Homecoming Parade crash that killed four people and injured 46, was twice treated and released by mental hospitals, who found that there was “really nothing else they could do for her,” her father, Floyd Chambers, revealed at a press conference on Tuesday.
Adacia Chambers, prosecutors say, plowed her gray Hyundai Electra into the parade crowd “intentionally” after first running a red light, ignoring pedestrians’ frantic pleas to slow down, and striking a police motorcycle. The Oklahoma prosecutors have said that the 25-year-old Stillwater resident will be charged with four counts of second-degree murder, each carrying its own maximum sentence of life behind bars, with a minimum of 10 years.
But according to a report Tuesday by ABC News, Chambers has not yet been formally charged on those counts.
Of the 46 people hurt in the crash, one remains in critical condition, and that person’s condition may yet decline, according to the report. If that victim were to pass away, Adacia Chambers could face a fifth murder charge.
Police initially said that Chambers would be charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, but after interviewing her, defense lawyer Tony Coleman strongly denied that the young woman, who worked at a fast food restaurant not far from the crash scene, was drunk when she drove into the crowd.
Instead, Coleman said he was concerned for Chambers’ mental health.
In an interview Tuesday on the Today show, Coleman said that when he spoke to Chambers and informed her that four people had been killed in the crash, she “had no real response whatsoever.”
Chambers’ blank reaction led Coleman to be “concerned about her capacity, her competency at this time,” the lawyer said.
Also on Tuesday, Floyd Chambers spoke to the media and confirmed that his daughter was confined to a mental health facility for two weeks in 2013 but released. She later checked into to another mental hospital with the same result.
“Just recently, she had a mental hospital she went to in Wagoner at one time. They had her for a couple of weeks and they released her, and there’s really nothing else they could do for her,” said the Oklahoma crash driver’s dad, according to a KFOR-TV report.
“So I took her to another place when she got out of there, and basically the same thing. She was feeling fine and, you know, at the point she was 21, so I’d done all I could do as a father. I didn’t know where else to turn and what to do,” the distraught dad told the press.
But according to the executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Oklahoma chapter, the mental health system failed Adacia Chambers by giving up on her and declaring that there was “nothing else they could do.”
“It really broke my heart that that’s what they were told when she was discharged because that is not true,” Traci Cook told KFOR. “Recovery is possible for everyone and it broke my heart to see that interview.”
Floyd Chambers acknowledged that Adacia “may have underlying problems that I wasn’t fully aware of.” But he defended his daughter against accusations that she caused the crash intentionally or was on drugs or alcohol at the time of the deadly incident.
“Adacia is a kind, loving, caring person, and she wouldn’t have done this purposefully,” Floyd Chambers said, adding that his daughter “loved music, she was a wonderful artist.”
A judge earlier this week ordered a mental health evaluation for Adacia Chambers, which has yet to take place. She is currently being held on a $1 million bond, which her father said he had “no way” to post on his daughter’s behalf.
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