New Year, same old results on our roads!
New Year’s Eve, the holiday devoted to getting drunk, took its usual deadly toll in North Texas. Here are reports about the holiday’s DWI deaths in DFW and a related story about the poster child of drunk driving in North Texas – if not the country. These add to our dismal December drunk driving crashes.
Ethan Couch, who caused four DWI deaths in DFW and permanent paralysis to another teenager, is jailed
The day after New Year’s Eve, the “affluenza teen” was arrested for violating his parole – again. This story makes us angry since our firm has been involved with this catastrophe from its beginning.
Couch got drunk and stoned at a party at his house in 2013. At midnight, he gathered the party-goers into his father’s F-350 huge dually. Couch’s blood alcohol content was a whopping .24% – three times the legal limit if he were 21. He had just turned 16 and had already been busted at 15 for possessing alcohol.
Couch accelerated to 70 mph on a narrow street and crashed this massive truck into three bystanders. These Good Samaritans had generously come to help a woman who had pulled over with car trouble. All four tragically perished. The remains of the truck are shown above.
He also catastrophically injured our firm’s young client who remains paralyzed almost seven years later. Mr Berenson filed a lawsuit and successfully settled the case out of court.
Couch was released in 2018 and ordered to wear a drug patch which apparently detected marijuana in his system. His attorneys have contested that finding.
If he used THC, you can assume that the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office is going to file a motion to revoke his probation. He could be sentenced to serve his remaining probation through 2024. At the very least, the families of the victims will see a small measure of justice that should have been rendered years ago.
Fort Worth wreck kills woman and injures three
On New Year’s Eve at 11:00 p.m. a 20-year-old woman from Burleson was driving on Interstate 30. She may have been run off the road by a speeding pickup truck. She lost control of her vehicle on Interstate 30 as she was exiting at Montgomery Avenue near our office. The woman crashed into a huge metal exit sign pole where she died upon impact. Her three passengers were rushed to area hospitals. Two sustained critical injuries.
30 minutes later, another Fort Worth crash takes lives of two
At 11:30 p.m. a pickup truck was driving southbound not far away on McCart Avenue. It sped up to pass a car and crossed over into oncoming traffic. The driver crashed into another vehicle head-on at the intersection at Bilglade Road and rolled over. The driver died. The other vehicle almost ran into a house and that driver also perished.
Lewisville was also the site of a deadly crash
And up the road at 3:45 a.m., an intoxicated woman on S.H. 121 at Interstate 35 crashed her SUV into a smaller car. It was driven by a young man who had a female passenger. The young passenger lost her life and the man remains hospitalized with serious injuries.
The drunk driver was arrested for intoxication manslaughter and intoxication assault. And the number of DWI deaths in DFW and serious injuries rose.
DWIs are a huge problem in North Texas
Over the course of a few hours, there were three DWI deaths in DFW. And these are just a few of the crashes that happened New Year’s Eve and Day – and every day and night of the year.
We have a never-ending number of driving while intoxicated collisions. Almost 100 die each year in North Texas as a result of over 5,000 driving while intoxicated wrecks.
If you are not concerned, you should be. Take a look at our impaired driving statistics
Attorneys that Can Help
Victims of drunk and drugged driving sometimes don’t know about the options they have after a crash. MADD North Texas offers victim services as well as referrals to attorneys.
Mr. Berenson of Berenson Law Firm has been involved with MADD since 2013 when the Couch case angered him and he wanted to help stop DWIs. He is beginning his third year on its board of directors in North Texas. As a personal injury lawyer, he sees the carnage and goes after drunk drivers with a passion.
However, the epidemic of driving while intoxicated rages on in North Texas and Berenson Injury Law handles many of these cases with a recent filing suit on behalf of the widow of a man killed by a drunk driver several weeks ago in Fort Worth.
If you, or someone you love, has been the victim of a violent crime, you can contact a MADD Victim Advocate, 24 hours a day, at 1-877-MADD-HELP. You can also go online to https://www.madd.org/get-help/victim-assistance/