Thread: (Ohio) Man pleads guilty in crashes

Man pleads guilty in crashes
He admits being drunk during wrong-way drive on Outerbelt
Thursday, January 21, 2010 3:20 AM
By Kathy Lynn Gray

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Baltazar J. Altunar hit five vehicles and injured seven people on I-270 on Christmas Day 2008.

A man who hit five vehicles, injuring seven people, while driving drunk the wrong way on the south Outerbelt pleaded guilty yesterday to three counts of aggravated vehicular assault.

Baltazar J. Altunar, who was injured so badly that a medic believed he was dead, hobbled into Franklin County Common Pleas Court with the help of a cane to admit he'd been drunk when he drove against traffic for 5 miles on I-270 on Christmas Day 2008.

"I fell asleep, and I went the wrong way," Altunar, 21, told Judge John F. Bender.

Drivers skidded, swerved and -- in one case -- rolled off the highway to avoid his Nissan Maxima, which was traveling west in the eastbound lanes of I-270. Altunar hit three cars before slamming into a tractor-trailer and colliding head-on with another vehicle about 10 a.m. near Alum Creek Drive, witnesses told police.

Altunar, who lived on Derrer Road, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.219 percent. An Ohio driver is considered intoxicated at 0.08 percent. Empty beer cans and a cardboard beer case were found in wreckage surrounding the Nissan.

A medic who was at the crash scene but not involved with the rescue pronounced Altunar dead, but other medics saw signs of life. Altunar was hospitalized for five months and said in court he is facing at least one more operation, to close a wound in his chest.

Altunar is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico and will be deported after serving any prison sentence. Bender ordered a pre-sentence investigation and said he will sentence him Feb. 12. Altunar had been charged with six counts of aggravated vehicular assault and two counts of driving while intoxicated. Five of those counts were dropped as a result of his guilty pleas to the three felonies, which involved injures to three people in the same vehicle.

In a separate case, Altunar pleaded guilty to drunken driving in 2007, court records show.

kgray@dispatch.com

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/colum ... 1#lastPost

It seems it takes a few arrests and life threatening injuries to get an illegal alien arrested.

Maybe the injured should sue the city/county/state to get some laws to protect us from known illegal aliens.

Wrong-way driver turns Christmas into chaos
Some manage to dodge car speeding on I-270; 7 injured
Thursday, December 25, 2008 11:14 AM
Updated: Thursday, December 25, 2008 09:38 PM
By Elizabeth Gibson

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The crash scene, looking east at I-270 from the Jackson Pike overpass.
The path of destruction and fear stretched at least 5 miles this morning after a 24-year-old man rocketed his car the wrong way on the South Outerbelt.

The toll: Seven people injured, including the critically injured driver, Altunar Baltazar. Six vehicles crunched, including the smashed Nissan Maxima that witnesses say other cars were lucky to avoid.

"He headed right for us," Columbus resident Robert Crawford said. "It was like he was trying to hit us. He had the pedal to the floor. I knew he was going to clip someone quick."

Crawford, who was heading east on I-270, said the white car suddenly whizzed into sight over a rise on the highway near Alum Creek Drive. He dodged it and watched cars scramble to clear the road in his rearview mirror.

The Franklin County sheriff's office said the driver's unofficial Ohio ID card identified him as Baltazar, and gave his address as 807 Derrer Rd. He actually was pronounced dead at the scene, but medics later decided he still was showing signs of life and sent him to Ohio State University Medical Center, a sheriff's statement said.

The six other injured motorists were taken to Grant Medical Center and Mount Carmel West hospital. Authorities have not publicly identified them tonight.

The crash closed I-270 eastbound for more than five hours, until about 4 p.m.
Grove City resident Sean Downs, 41, said he was traveling westbound when he looked across the median and saw the white car. He said it had to be going more than 95 miles per hour when it crashed.
"It was something surreal," he said. "I'm surprised he made it as far as he did. People were dodging like crazy."

Two cars swerved off the road, one rolling, to get out of the way, Downs said. When the speeding car reached the Scioto River, he said, it collided with a van that couldn't get out of the way.
Several law-enforcement agencies responded to the scene.

Little information is available today about Baltazar.

A Columbus resident named Altunar Baltazar, who would be about the same age as the driver today, was arrested last year for operating a vehicle while intoxicated and driving without a license, according to the Marysville Journal Tribune.

And who was his employer who enabled this low life to stay here another year and cause all this suffering? Someone was helping him afford the firewater.

Sue the Goverment for letting them here.

Originally Posted by GaPatriot

And who was his employer who enabled this low life to stay here another year and cause all this suffering? Someone was helping him afford the firewater.

"The Columbus Dispatch" never reveals the name of an illegal alien's employer.