The King County Medical Examiner’s Office on Monday identified the four USS Abraham Lincoln sailors who died Saturday night in a high-speed traffic accident on Rainier Avenue S. in Seattle.
The four were killed when a BMW M3 convertible they were riding in slammed into a utility pole and overturned in the 5700 block.
The deaths “definitely impacted the ship as a whole,” Lincoln spokesman Lt. John Filostrat said, adding that the mood around the ship Monday was “somber.”
The Lincoln is at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, undergoing maintenance after its return from deployment in August.
The medical examiner released the names and ages of the four victims. Filostrat said he expected to release more information about the men today, including their ranks and hometowns.
The four were identified as Carlos Ivan Garcia-Son, 22; Anthony Stephen Cox, 22; Clinton Dale Campbell, 24; and Oklahoma native Brian Adam Lane, 26.
Lane’s grandmother, who lives in his home state of Oklahoma, told The Herald that her grandson liked his job and intended to make a career of the Navy.
“He took his career really seriously,” Lurene Cornelius said.
Lane graduated from Prague High School in Prague, Okla. He also attended the University of Oklahoma, Cornelius said.
“We’re all just brokenhearted,” she said of the family.
According to information supplied to Cornelius by the Navy, Lane entered the service in early 2001 and began his tour on the Lincoln in January 2003. He was an electronics technician assigned to the nuclear reactor department on the ship.
He sailed with the Lincoln during the invasion of Iraq and later on a deployment assisting tsunami survivors in Southeast Asia.
The Lincoln’s Filostrat said the Navy tries to make sure all relatives are notified before the ship releases information about victims.
Seattle police spokesman Sean Whitcomb said it’s “very fortunate no other vehicles were involved because this accident could have been much worse.”
The impact of the BMW sheared off the utility pole and pushed it “a good distance,” Whitcomb said. The car overturned, spun around and came to rest in the oncoming traffic lane, Whitcomb said.
Witnesses told police the BMW had been traveling “exceedingly fast,” passing other cars in a center turn lane and the oncoming lane, Whitcomb said. Tests will be conducted to determine whether drugs or alcohol were involved, he added.
Talk to us
- You can tell us about news and ask us about our journalism by emailing newstips@heraldnet.com or by calling 425-339-3428.
- If you have an opinion you wish to share for publication, send a letter to the editor to letters@heraldnet.com or by regular mail to The Daily Herald, Letters, P.O. Box 930, Everett, WA 98206.
- More contact information is here.
