Ex-Chargers safety Terrence Kiel, 27, killed following auto accident

July 5, 2008
CBSSports.com wire reports


SAN DIEGO -- Former Chargers safety Terrence Kiel was killed after he was thrown from a Chevy sedan he was driving, police said Saturday.

Kiel, 27, was driving alone after leaving a party at about 10:15 Friday night when he hit a wall in San Diego's upscale Scripps Ranch neighorhood and was thrown from the car, police Sgt. Alan Hayward said.

kiel was barely breathing when paramedics reached him and he died about an hour later, Hayward said.

Friends had tried to keep Kiel from driving home from the party, Hayward said, and witnesses told police he appeared to be driving in the wrong direction when he crashed.

Police would not know wheather Kiel had been under the influence of drugs or alcohol until toxicology tests were performed, Hayward said.

A second-round draft pick out of Texas A&M in 2003, Kiel played four years in the NFL from 2003-2006, all with the Chargers.

In February 2007 he pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor drug charges for shipping prescription cough syrup to Texas, the most significant of several scrapes with the law.

He was released by the team after his plea.

Kiel had been led off the practice field and arrested in the locker room by Drug Enforcement Administration agents in September 2006, suspected of shipping at least two parcels of prescription cough syrup, apparently to be mixed with soft drinks to make a concoction known as "lean".

The felony charges were later dropped after he completed community service, and he wasa serving three years probation for the misdemeanor charges.

He was cited for urinating in public outside a San Diego nightclub in January 2007, but the city dropped that charge.

AP NEWS
The Associated Press News Service

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I hate to read this kind of stuff. I wonder why friends were trying to keep from leaving the party? Sheeeeeeesh!

Are the Chargers cursed? They've certainly had their fair share of tradgedy. LB David Griggs died in a car accident in '95, RB Rodney Carver died in the ValueJet crash in '96, LB Steve Foley was shot by an off-duty cop in '06, ending his career and now Kiel.