Highway Patrol records show Tiger Woods had taken pain pills before crash

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While waiting for an ambulance to take her unconscious husband to the hospital after he crashed his SUV, Tiger Woods’ wife handed officers two bottles of pain medicine that she said he had taken earlier in the day, according to investigative records released Friday to the Orlando Sentinel.

She also tried to ride in the ambulance to the hospital with her husband, but the crew wouldn’t let her, saying this was a case of domestic violence, the Florida Highway Patrol records show.

Those details and others were released Friday by the agency, following a Dec. 16 public records request by the Orlando Sentinel.

Woods was injured in a crash Nov. 27 when he tried to leave his Isleworth mansion about 2:30 a.m. but bounced off two curbs, ran through a row of shrubs, hit a fire hydrant and then crashed into a tree in his neighbor’s yard.

The Highway Patrol ticketed him for careless driving, and he paid a $164 fine.

The Highway Patrol records also reveal that the afternoon of the crash, the agency’s troopers tried to get medical records from the hospital, HealthCentral in Ocoee, that would have shown whether Woods had been drinking or was under the influence of drugs.

An emergency room nurse, however, said the records department was closed, and troopers would have to come back the following Monday.

Troopers did, arriving about 7 a.m. Nov. 30, the first business day after the crash.

“The director of medical records at first stated their computer system was not working, then she stated that they would not provide that information without a warrant on D-1 [Tiger Woods] regarding whether or not medical blood had been drawn,” wrote the Highway Patrol’s Thomas DeWitt.

Check back for more from the just released records.

-- Rene Stutzman