Foremost Group CEO Angie Zhao accidentally got drunk while driving last month Tesla According to a police report released Wednesday, she reversed her X SUV over a wall and into a pond at the Texas ranch she owned with her husband, billionaire venture capitalist Jim Breyer.
Friends and rescuers tried unsuccessfully to free the 50-year-old shipping executive from his submerged vehicle, causing him to drown.
Her desperate efforts were detailed in the new report, which concluded she died in an “unfortunate accident.”
Toxicology reports later showed Zhao’s blood alcohol level was 0.233, the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office said in its report.
This level is nearly three times the legal limit for driving on public roads in Texas and can cause impaired behavior and other side effects.
According to the report, surveillance video from outside the ranch hotel showed her “staggering toward the vehicle” that night.
Chao is the sister-in-law of Kentucky Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is married to her sister Elaine Chao, who has served as labor and transportation department chief under various Republican administrations in the United States. people.
Police reports say Angela Chao hosted seven close female friends at her guesthouse on the 4,500-acre JW Ranch in Johnson City on Feb. 10, a day after the group attended a concert hosted by rapper Pitbull A concert near Austin.
Most, if not all, of the women are from New York and attended Harvard Business School with Zhao. Breyer was reportedly in Dubai while the couple’s young children were living in the ranch’s main house.
At about 11:30 p.m., Ms. Zhao left the hotel and drove about a mile to the main house, where the two women had dinner and drinks.
Investigators later determined that Chao’s Tesla hit a retaining wall near the pond, splitting two large limestone blocks at least three feet tall and weighing 500 pounds, and that the SUV “went flying after hitting the retaining wall.” , then landed and rolled into a pond,” the report said.
The video shows the car first darting forward towards a wooden barrier and then “turning left continuously over the top of the limestone wall.”
Minutes after she left, Zhao called one of her friends, Amber Landeau-Kienan, and calmly told her “she was in the ‘lake’ (pond),” the report said. .
Kienan walked outside and saw a Tesla parked in the pond, about 30 feet from the hotel.
“Kienan was still on the phone with Kienan, and she told him in a (calm) voice that her feet were in the water,” the report said. “Keinan asked Chao to get out of the car. Chao told Kienan in a calm voice that she couldn’t get out of the car. .”
“Zhao told Kenan the water was rising and she was going to die and said ‘I love you’ to Kenan before the vehicle sank underwater.”
The call lasted about eight minutes, Kenan told police, and she got into her kayak and paddled toward the Tesla while another friend, Victoria Garcia, “ran to the pond and swam in the pond until the Tesla was submerged.” The place”. . “Victoria then climbed onto the roof of the Tesla in an attempt to find Ms. Zhao.”
According to the report, a third friend, Heela Yang Tsuzuki, called 911.
Rescue workers rushed to the scene.
One deputy wrote that when he and another deputy arrived, he saw the ranch manager “standing on top of the fully submerged vehicle” about 25 yards from shore while Keenan paddled toward shore.
The ranch manager told deputies that the Tesla’s rear passenger door was open, the report said.
Two police officers entered the pond and tried several times to find Zhao through the back door, “but were unsuccessful,” the report said.
“During our time there were several females on the shore screaming (frantically) at us,” the deputy wrote. “They stated they knew she was in the water because Zhao called them and informed them the car was filled with water.”
The officer then obtained a breaker bar from Blanco County firefighters and swam back to try and unsuccessfully break the windshield.
Two paramedics then swam out and helped him break the SUV’s side window. “I swam down and felt a hand,” the deputy wrote.
Subsequently, Ms. Zhao was pulled out of the car, and the medical staff swam back to the shore with her and “started cardiopulmonary resuscitation.”
She was pronounced dead at 1:40 a.m. on February 11.
Days after the accident, on February 15, Texas Rangers and FBI agents met with the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office, the lead investigative agency in the case.
After reviewing photos, videos and reports from the scene, the Texas Rangers and FBI “believe this incident was nothing more than an unfortunate accident.”
Angela Chao became CEO of Foremost Group in 2018. The company was founded in 1964 by her father, James Chao.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for James Chao and his family said: “Angela’s death is a terrible tragedy and words cannot describe the family’s deep sorrow.”
“Her family is extremely grateful to the first responders and friends who went to great lengths to save her,” the spokesman said.
Angela Chao has served on the boards of the American Shipping Council, the Dean’s Advisory Council of Harvard Business School, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her first husband, investment banker Bruce Wasserstein, died a few months after their marriage in 2009.
Breyer is part owner of the National Basketball Association’s Boston Celtics and previously served on the boards of Facebook, Walmart, Marvel Entertainment, News Corp. and Dell.
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