Toxicology results back for fatal Lake Murray boating crash

Toxicology results for the driver killed in last month’s boating crash on Lake Murray are in.

The S.C. Department of Natural Resources said it has received the results of toxicology testing on 37-year-old Danny Phillips, who was driving his 16-foot bass boat when it collided with a 32-foot powerboat in Lake Murray on April 21. While the tests are in, details of the results were not available Wednesday, said Capt. Robert McCullough.

Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher deferred questions about the toxicology results to the Department of Natural Resources, which is investigating the crash. Shawn Lanier, 28 and a passenger on Phillips’ boat, also was killed in the collision. Officials have said both men died from blunt force injuries related to the crash, which also injured Ashley Thomas Wannamaker, the third person on the boat.

Investigators so far have not ruled out alcohol as a factor in the crash, which happened just after 11 p.m. in an area of the lake north of Dreher Island State Park. The driver of the powerboat, Bruce Dyer, told officers he had consumed “a few beers over the course of five or six hours,” McCullough has said. He passed a field sobriety test administered on land after the crash.

Officials previously said speed appears to have been a factor with both vessels. Details about what caused the crash and who is believed to be at fault have not yet been released; however, DNR said it expects to have a decision this week on what criminal charges, if any, will be brought in the case.

Wannamaker filed a lawsuit last week against Dyer, accusing the Dick Dyer Toyota president of, among other things, speeding, driving while impaired, failing to keep a proper lookout and failing to steer his boat to avoid colliding with the bass boat. Dyer has not filed an answer to the civil complaint.

This story was originally published May 10, 2017 at 10:28 AM with the headline "Toxicology results back for fatal Lake Murray boating crash."