By John Davis
The Sarasota Herald Tribune
NORTH PORT, Fla. — The Port Charlotte man who was apparently in a car wreck Friday night and was left unattended by authorities for 16 hours was said to be on his way to see a friend and co-worker when he crashed.
Ricky Robinson said Tuesday that he believes Brian Wood took a wrong turn before reportedly crashing into a power pole off Lovering Avenue. Police believe Wood, 55, sustained injuries in the crash that proved fatal. His body was found near the truck Saturday evening, 16 hours after a passerby called police and reported he had seen someone lying by a truck in the area.
“There’s no lights,” said Robinson, 49, on Tuesday of the area where Wood died. “There’s no street lights. Nothing is out there.”
Robinson worked at Wood’s motorcycle repair shop, Suncoast V-Twin, and would regularly socialize with Wood during off hours. He said it was not unusual for Wood to drop by Robinson’s home in a rural section of the city known as the Estates. The two had an easygoing relationship.
“That’s why I wasn’t too alarmed by him not showing up,” Robinson said.
Wood’s family members are still coming to grips with the fact that authorities let Wood lie in the mud for so long and are waiting to learn whether he could have been saved.
Mark Minisci Jr., 19, of North Port, who tried to alert police to Wood’s plight Friday night, said he is “flabbergasted” by the whole ordeal.
The operator who took Minisci’s call, Nadia Kashitskaya, had been working for the North Port Police since 2008, with no blemishes on her employment record until Friday’s incident. She was making $32,000 a year and was praised by the department for acting as a Ukrainian interpreter for detectives.
North Port Police are investigating the handling of the call.
“We have a caller on the line in North Port with a North Port operator. It’s ours,” Police Chief Terry Lewis said Tuesday. “We need to provide for that safe community. We need to do the right thing. We didn’t do it.”
The revelation that Kashitskaya failed to act on Minisci’s 11:38 p.m. call Friday has shaken the community’s confidence in the 911 system. Police did not respond to the scene until 6:30 p.m. Saturday, after Minisci returned to the secluded area with two friends to see what had happened. He was shocked to see nothing had changed. Wood was still lying there.
“The lady on the phone left me just stumped,” Minisci said, recalling his back-and-forth with Kashitskaya and how she neglected to send a squad car even after he specifically asked for someone to go check on Wood.
North Port Police and the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said that under no circumstances should his call have been ignored.
Kashitskaya was placed on administrative leave Monday while the police department reviews her actions and awaits the results of Wood’s autopsy.
Police said Wood likely crashed into a power pole and got out of his truck before dying from his injuries. The nature of those injuries and when he died are being examined by the Medical Examiner’s office.
Information on North Port’s investigation into the handling of the call and Wood’s autopsy results are expected next week.
In the meantime, all those involved struggle with what went wrong.
Minisci was driving with a female friend Friday night in a secluded section of the city north of Interstate 75. When the pair saw Wood lying there they said they were frightened. Minisci said he could tell it was a man lying on his side, his head on his arm. The doors on the red pickup were closed and the truck was not running. It did not appear to Minisci that there had been a wreck.
Minisci flashed his lights and sounded his horn, but Wood did not respond. Minisci said he was concerned for his safety and the safety of his date.
They drove to the 7-Eleven on Sumter Boulevard and called 911.
But instead of Lovering, Minisci identified the street as Lovesong or Lovebird. Kashitskaya could have found the correct street by taking cues from Minisci’s general location and searching the city’s computer system under “love,” but she did not.
She also did not pass Minisci’s turn-by-turn directions on to a patrol car, telling Minisci she could not because: “Unfortunately, our system doesn’t work like that.”
Wood’s sister, Linda Leachman, said she is haunted by the thought of her brother’s body lying by the roadside for so long.
“I’ve been listening over and over to that 911 call,” said the 56-year-old from her home in Kentucky on Tuesday.
“I’m in disbelief. Just disbelief. I don’t know how to take that.”
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