Woods crash ambulance crew cited domestic violence

MIAMI,  (Reuters) – The ambulance crew that took  golfer Tiger Woods from the scene of his fateful car crash last  year did not let his wife ride with him because they said the  incident was a case of domestic violence, according to Florida  police records cited by a local newspaper yesterday.

The new information from Florida Highway Patrol records,  quoted by the Orlando Sentinel, once again raised the  possibility of domestic violence on Nov. 27 between Woods and  his wife Elin Nordegren, although Woods has repeatedly denied  this.

The bizarre early morning accident, in which Woods hit a  hedge, fire hydrant and tree while leaving his luxury mansion,  triggered revelations of repeated affairs by the world’s No. 1  golfer, who bowed out of the game.

Last month, in his first public appearance since his  spectacular fall from grace which rocked his  multimillion-dollar sponsors, Woods apologized to family and  fans for cheating on his wife, and said he was undergoing  therapy.

But he denied there had been any physical violence between  him and his wife. “Elin never hit me that night or any other  night,” he said. “There has never been an episode of domestic  violence in our marriage, ever.”

The Orlando Sentinel said new Florida Highway Patrol  records, released following a Dec. 16 public records request by  the newspaper, showed that when Nordegren tried to ride in the  ambulance to the hospital with her hurt husband after the  crash, the crew would not let her, saying this was a case of  domestic violence.

‘TOOK MEDICATION’

The records said Nordegren told officers that after the  crash, she used a golf club to break the rear windows of her  husband’s black SUV, and helped him out. An officer at the  scene saw Woods’ lower lip was cut, the police records said.

The officer asked Nordegren “if he had been drinking and  she stated no, that he had taken his medication earlier, but  did not provide a time. The medication was Vicodin,” the police  report said. She went back into the house and came back with  two small bottles of the pain medicine, the records said.

The Orlando Sentinel repeated earlier police reports that  the Florida Highway Patrol had asked the Orange-Osceola State  Attorney’s Office to subpoena Woods’ hospital blood test  records, but an assistant state attorney rejected the request  on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence.

Several days after the crash, the Florida Highway Patrol  ticketed Woods for careless driving and he paid a small fine.

At his carefully scripted appearance last month, a somber  Woods said he planned to return to golf “one day”, but didn’t  know when. “I don’t rule out that it will be this year.”

There has been intense media speculation that the  34-year-old American, whose dominance on the golf course put  him in the pantheon of all-time sporting greats since he turned  professional in 1996, could make a return at events in Florida  later this month, or at the U.S. Masters in Augusta, Georgia,  at the beginning of April.

The Masters is the blockbuster golf event for sponsors and  worldwide television audiences.

Woods’ absence from events at which he usually competes  generally drives down television ratings by 50 percent.