Fact Check

Sarah Palin in a Coma After Hit and Run?

Reports that the former Alaska governor was critically injured in an automobile accident are fake news.

Published Apr 30, 2017

 (Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com)
Image Via Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com
Claim:
Former Alaska governor was critically injured in an automobile accident.

In April 2017, several web sites posted articles reporting that former Alaska governor was critically injured in an automobile accident (along with the suggestion that the incident was no "accident"):

It seems as though there may be more than the normal forces at play here.

Former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin was the victim of a horrendous crime this morning while driving to meet a friend on the Pacific Coast Highway. She was run off the road in what authorities are calling a hit and run and nearly killed. The SUV she was driving rolled over several times and ended up in a drainage ditch.

Governor Palin was taken to a local hospital under an alias in case the hit and run was on purpose and not a random act of reckless driving. According to her spokesman, she is currently in a coma with 2 broken vertebrae and a broken thigh.

None of this was true. The identical article was posted on several different web sites, including bluevision.news, americainformer.com, thepremiumnews.com washingtonfeed.com, whitespeach.com, proudleader.com, dailyusaupdate.com, freedomcrossroads.us, all of which run the same collection of fake and sensationalized "news" amidst a collection of low-quality advertising.

Meanwhile, not a single reputable news outlet published any mention of Sarah Palin's having been seriously injured in any type of accident.

These fake news sites doubled down shortly afterwards with a followup fake news story about Palin's having come out of her coma and provided information about her assailants:

Governor Sarah Palin, who was run off the road Friday on the Pacific Coast Highway, woke up this morning and is in great spirits. Battered and bruised physically, she remains as smart as a whip and was able to identify the vehicle that ran her off the road, complete with license plate.

The California Highway Patrol says the plate can be traced to a small car rental business in the Silicon Valley and that it was rented using fake ID. They do, however, have a video of the perp and circulated his picture across the area. The FBI is using facial recognition software to track him down.

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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