Panama City Beach offered more than just carefree days of lying in the sun and MTV concerts for the thousands of college students who traveled to the Emerald Coast for spring break this year.
For the past two weeks, it has offered tragedy as well. At least for the friends and families of three spring breakers who died and four spring breakers who were injured.
A possible alcohol-related accident involved a hit-and-run pedestrian fatality at 3 a.m. March 22, according to the WMBB news department. Twenty-year-old Randy Nolan of Auburn was hit by Dakota Matthews, 20, on Front Beach Road and Short Street in Panama City.
After hitting Nolan in a 2009 Nissan Altima, Matthews went on to cause two additional accidents. In the second accident, a police officer was forced to hit a telephone pole to prevent hitting Matthews in a head-on collision. Matthews hit a 2004 Ford pickup truck, which in turn hit a 2003 Ford pickup truck. After the last accident at 3:35 a.m., Matthews was pronounced dead. The police officer and drivers of the pickup trucks only had minor injuries.
Major Dave Humphreys with the Panama City Beach Police Department told WMBB each incident happened separately, that it was not a car chase, but unfortunately the drivers were in Matthews' path.
In another accident, Justin Richard Delval, 21, was found dead Wednesday March 18 near the Sterling Reef beachfront condominium complex, according to Panama City's News Herald Web site,. A Sterling Reef maintenance man found the body in a ditch at 9:15 a.m.
Medical examiner Michael Hunter told the Herald traumatic injury had been ruled out. A microscopic tissue examination and toxicology tests are being done to determine the cause of death.
Delval, a Texas A&M University sophomore from Katy, Texas, was not staying at the complex. He was there Tuesday night visiting friends.
Delval's brother, Sean, 22, told the Bryan-College Station (Texas) Eagle newspaper on Wednesday what he was hearing was uncharacteristic of his brother.
"They said they lost track of him in the hotel and called and texted him," Delval said. "He wouldn't just go walk off and not answer his phone. I guess maybe he had too much alcohol in him."
According to the Herald, in the days and week before, a few other vacationers suffered various injuries from other accidents.
Jonathon Dale Dial, 20, fell off the Super 8 motel's metal roof on the night of March 10. The Crossville, Tenn., resident sustained facial fractures and was in critical condition, but is now stable.
Humphreys told the Herald Dial had been drinking, possibly all day.
Ross Skarda, also 20, fell six stories off a balcony into sand at Seachase Condominiums in the early morning of March 16. Skarda, of Hazen, Ark., cracked four vertebrae and was released from the hospital two days later.
Humphreys said Skarda was showing off for friends when the chair he was standing on moved out from under him and he fell over the side into the sand.
Humphreys also said two people were stabbed with a broken beer bottle March 12 at the Boardwalk Beach Resort while a restless crowd waited for more than four hours for the Lil Wayne concert hosted by mtvU to start. Neither victim was seriously injured.
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