Michael E. Moritz, an Ohio State alumnus and the largest individual contributor to OSU, was in critical condition yesterday after a serious car crash on Saturday evening while vacationing with his wife in Naples, Fla.
Moritz and his wife were taken to Naples Community Hospital for treatment. Moritz’s wife sustained minor injuries, which included a broken elbow.
Moritz, 68, and his wife Lou Ann, 63, had been vacationing at their beach home in Florida since early February. At approximately 10 p.m. Saturday, the couple and two of their friends were waiting in a rented Ford Taurus at the red light of a busy intersection when the driver of a pickup truck lost control, swerved and crashed into the passenger’s side of the Taurus, where Moritz was seated. Moritz’s wife was in the driver’s seat, and the other couple was in the back seat of the car.
Immediately after crashing into the Taurus the driver of the pickup truck got out of his vehicle and attempted to run away before police apprehended him, said Moritz’s daughter, Cathy Presper of Upper Arlington.
The Collier County Sheriff’s Office in Florida did not have any further information about the accident. Presper said officials do not have the results of the pickup truck driver’s sobriety test.
Presper said her father’s condition is very much touch-and-go. He falls in and out of consciousness and is unable to speak.
Moritz contributed $30 million to the OSU College of Law. In honor of this gift, the building was named after him and became the Michael E. Moritz College of Law. His contributions include paying full tuition and a stipend for 30 law students at OSU.
Moritz graduated from OSU in 1958 and received his law degree several years later. In earlier interviews, Moritz said he wanted to contribute the money in efforts to make OSU one of the top public law schools available to students.
“I’m very proud of him. I got my MBA at Ohio State as well as my brother. I was there when Max Fisher gave money, and to have my father do a similar contribution makes me very proud,” Presper said.
