Injured trucker charged with drunken driving

Injured trucker charged with drunken driving
Big rig leaves Interstate 80 on downhill Weimar stretch
WEIMAR – A big-rig truck driver escaped serious injury after leaving Interstate 80 and crashing into a glade of trees.
But he couldn’t escape what a California Highway Patrol spokesman said was the strong smell of alcohol on his breath.
Bound for Sacramento from Reno on Thursday night, driver Richard Ratliff was on a downhill grade when his rig left the road, plowed down a 15-foot embankment, knocked out at least one pine tree and managed to maneuver through two more before coming to a stop.
Ratliff, who later told investigators that he had been drinking wine earlier in the day, punched a window out to get free of the crumpled cab.
The trailer – which was returning empty to Sacramento’s Tony’s food distribution center – remained upright.
Ratliff, 44, a Fallon, Nev. resident, was taken to Sutter Roseville Medical Center with a list of injuries that included head bruises, a broken eye socket, and broken ribs.
But his troubles had only begun. Newcastle Highway Patrol Officer Maury Kane said the critically injured trucker had a noticeably strong odor of alcohol on his breath. Hospital personnel noticed it and administered a blood-alcohol test that is anticipated to be well above the 0.08 blood-alcohol limit, Kane said.
http://www.auburnjournal.com/detail/79501.html

 

He's really lucky that he wrecked where he did. There are some hairy spots coming down where he would have kept going and going down the side.