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Third Degree Felony Offense For Drunk Driver in Three Separate Accidents Reports Austin Personal Injury Lawyer

Oct 28, 2011

Austin, TX (Law Firm Newswire) October 27, 2011 – One woman caused three separate accidents as a result of being drunk and belligerent. She had a blood alcohol level of .277 and completely disregarded her victims.

“You have to shake your head in complete amazement when you find out the woman involved in three car wrecks blew .277, which is more than three times the legal limit of .08,” said Robert W. Lee, an Austin personal injury attorney of The Lee Law Firm in Texas. “And yet, she was still trying to drive. Obviously she wasn’t doing a good job of it since she was involved in three car wrecks all on the same day.”

As it turns out, DWI, hitting three cars and fleeing the scene each time was not all this woman did. She also managed to bite one of the other drivers she hit after he took her keys out of her car to stop her from driving. Additional information produced by the police also revealed she has been charged with DWI three times, making her charges this time a third-degree felony offense.

What happened in this case is that the police were called to the scene of the third accident she caused. When they got there, they found her sitting in her vehicle, a 2006 Mitsubishi. The officers tracked down the other car owners who had been hit and started taking statements.

The first car hit was a black Lexus that was driving north on a service road when the woman ran into him. They pulled into a parking lot, and as the driver got out of his vehicle to talk to her, she put her vehicle in reverse and slammed into his car a second time, then fled the scene. Just a few short miles down the road, she then hit a gray Pontiac and once again kept on going without stopping.

“It was just a few minutes before she hit the third car, a purple Hyundai,” explained Lee. “This one she rear-ended. Again, she tried to take off, but hit the same car yet again. By this time, the Hyundai driver was on his cell phone calling the police when the woman stormed over to him, snatched the phone and threw it. He grabbed her keys to stop her from leaving. This caused the woman to start struggling with the man to get her keys, and she bite his hand so he would drop them.

The police report shows there was an open container of alcohol on the passenger’s seat and the woman herself had an extremely strong smell of alcohol on her breath. When she was told to step out of her car, she instead fell onto the grass above the curb. She went to jail and was held on a $40,000 bond.

“Is this negligence? Yes, without any question,” said Lee. “Will a case against her succeed if filed by any one of the three drivers? It’s highly likely given the police report and the cold hard facts of what happened and her behavior. The most damning evidence is her prior convictions and the fact that she blew .277. I’m not sure how she was able to even function well enough to be driving, but then she obviously was not functioning or thinking straight, or she never would have gotten behind the wheel in the first place.”

Many people who are in these types of accidents might be unsure of the next steps. Make a phone call to an experienced Austin injury lawyer that knows what to do with cases like this one. “I don’t think there is much doubt that this woman will do jail time and face stiff fines, suspension and even court-ordered alcohol rehab,” Lee commented. “While it’s too late for the victims in this instance, her legal penalties may turn things around, so that this does not happen to someone else and a death is the result. Only time will tell.”

To learn more or to contact an Austin personal injury lawyer or Austin personal injury attorney, visit http://www.civtrial.com.

Perlmutter & Schuelke, LLP
1717 W. 6th Street, Suite 375
Austin, Texas 78703-4868
Call (512) 476-4944