(Stillwater) — A Drumright man was charged Thursday with driving under the influence of alcohol, leaving the roadway of State Highway 33 east of Cushing, hitting a riding lawnmower on the grass, and seriously injuring a Cushing woman in a head-on collision on Aug. 30.
The driver of the mower, Kristine Mertes, 41, was taken by air ambulance to St. John’s Medical Center in Tulsa and admitted in critical condition with arm, leg, and trunk injuries, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Kevin Duncan wrote in an initial report.
Mertes, who reportedly remains in the hospital’s intensive care unit, had been ejected over the defendant’s vehicle, according to the trooper’s report provided to KUSH radio.
The defendant, Tom Andrew Fletcher, 23, was driving a 1992 Lexus eastbound on Highway 33, 2.3 miles east of Cushing in Payne County, when his vehicle ran off the road to the right and struck the riding lawnmower that was westbound off the road mowing, the trooper alleged in his initial report.
In a sworn affidavit filed in court records, the trooper wrote that he was dispatched at 5:08 p.m. Aug. 30 to a “vehicle versus lawnmower collision on State Highway 33, approximately 0.3 miles east of Euchee Valley Road.
“I arrived on scene and observed a two-door blue Lexus partially off the roadway with a riding lawnmower embedded approximately two feet into the front of the Lexus.
“I also observed medical personnel attending to a white female who was lying just off the roadway in the grass approximately 12 feet south of the south edge of State Highway 33.
“I observed a white male walking in the roadway just south of the Lexus and I asked this subject if he was the driver of the blue Lexus at the time of the collision and he stated yes.
“I asked the driver for his driver license and proof of insurance verification so I could complete a collision investigation report. As Mr. Fletcher was getting his information, I smelled an odor of an alcoholic beverage about his person,” the trooper alleged.
“The insurance verification form I was provided was expired,” the trooper wrote in his affidavit.
“I asked Mr. Fletcher how much alcohol he had to drink today and he stated several beers while he was playing golf at the Cushing Country Club golf course,” the trooper alleged in his affidavit.
Fletcher allegedly failed field sobriety tests administered by the trooper and was arrested at about 6:05 p.m. for driving under the influence of alcohol, according to the affidavit.
Fletcher refused to take a breath test for the presence of alcohol, the trooper alleged in his affidavit.
Fletcher was then transported by the trooper to Cushing Regional Hospital so that blood could be drawn for an alcohol test “due to him being a driver of a vehicle involved in a collision which has seriously injured a person,” the affidavit alleged.
Fletcher was taken to the Payne County Jail, from which he was released on Sept. 1 after posting $10,000 bond, court records show.
He appeared in court the following day before Special District Judge Phillip Corley, who ordered him to return to court on Sept. 16 to receive charges, court records show.
If convicted of DUI in a personal injury accident, Fletcher could be given as much as a five-year prison term and a $5,000 fine, according to the felony charge filed Thursday by Payne County Assistant District Attorney Jill Tontz.
Neither Tom Fletcher nor his passenger, Joshua Fletcher, 27, of Stillwater, was injured in the collision, according to the trooper’s report.
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