Schuler tried to buy pain medication, investigator says

Diane Schuler tried to purchase an over-the-counter pain medication from a convenience store in upstate Liberty, just after getting breakfast at a McDonald's there, said a private investigator for the Schuler family.

Thomas Ruskin of the CMP Protective and Investigative Group, which is probing the Familycase for the family, said he had viewed video surveillance of Schuler inside and outside the Route 17 store, which he declined to name, and interviewed the store clerk on duty. "She appeared to be absolutely normal," Ruskin said. The clerk "said she was clearly sober."

The store did not sell analgesics, Ruskin said, and Schuler left at about 10:58 a.m. and proceeded south on Route 17, he said, citing the time-stamped store video. Less than four hours later, she went the wrong way down the Taconic State Parkway and crashed head on into a sport utility vehicle, killing herself and seven others.

Ruskin said the video adds credence to the theory Schuler was suffering mightily from a 7-week old mouth abscess for which she hadn't sought treatment.

"This tells me that something is going on, that she needs something to kill the pain," Ruskin said. "She was not one for doctors or dentists. This was something over-the-counter."

State police and prosecutors could not be immediately reached last night. Ruskin said he will turn over the information to the state police today.

This week, Schuler's attorney, Dominic Barbara of Garden City, said in published reports that Schuler was taking Anbesol for the abscess on July 26, the day of the crash.

The victims included her daughter, Erin, 2, and her three nieces from Floral Park, Emma Hance, 8, Alyson Hance, 7, and Kate Hance, 5, in the minivan. Three Yonkers men in the SUV also died.

Schuler's 5-year-old son, Bryan, survived and is undergoing rehabilitation at St. Mary's Hospital for Children in Queens.

Toxicology reports from the Westchester medical examiner said Schuler had a .19 percent blood alcohol concentration - more than twice the legal limit of .08 - and was high on marijuana.

But Barbara, who has offered medical explanations for the crash, has insisted that Schuler had not been drinking and it was the Anbesol, an over-the-counter topical medication for toothaches and canker sores,that had showed up in toxicology tests as alcohol.

"She took Anbesol for her toothache, that's what caused it," Barbara was quoted as telling the New York Post.

Experts interviewed Thursday, however, challenged that theory.

"That's an impossibility," said William Closson, director of laboratories for Bendiner & Schlesinger of Brooklyn. "Anbesol contains an alcohol called benzyl alcohol. That is a completely different chemical substance than ethanol, which is the alcohol you find in beverages."

Richard Logan, a Missouri pharmacist and board member on the National Independent Pharmacy Coalition, called it a "ridiculous claim."

"Anbesol comes in very small bottles and is used sparingly and applied locally and not ingested. I have no idea how many bottles it would take for you to reach that level of blood alcohol content," he said.

Closson said the test used to detect alcohol in blood is a gas chromatography test, which would distinguish between the two types of alcohol, though he added that the benzyl alcohol could theoretically cause some physiological effect but nothing like the intoxication from ethanol.

Doug Petkus, a spokesman for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a Madison, N.J.-based firm that manufactures Anbesol, said the small amount of alcohol in the product is a preservative that evaporates upon skin contact.

Barbara could not be reached Thursday.

The Westchester County district attorney's office spokesman, Lucian Chalfen, declined to comment.

-Click here to see photos of the Schuler, Hance, and Bastardi families