Update [October 21, 2015]: Authorities said that Patrick Haden died from his injuries last Friday (October 16, 2015) after having multiple surgeries.
Lubbock, TX — Police said that there was a suspected drunk driver who ran a stop sign south of Lubbock this past Sunday morning (August 30, 2015) and injured another driver. Patrick Haden, 51, was injured and taken to a hospital in serious condition after his car was hit by 31-year old Carlos Nevarez, who ran a stop sign at U.S, 87 and FM 41.
This was around midnight on Sunday, the news reports said.
Haden had been driving north along U.S. 87 and Nevarez was driving east on FM 41.
Allegedly, Nevarez ran his stop sign and crashed into Haden’s car, causing Haden to be seriously injured. He was rushed to a hospital in critical condition, but was later upgraded to stable condition this week.
Nevarez, on the other hand, wasn’t badly injured, but was arrested. The police said that he was under the influence of alcohol at the time and have charged him with intoxication assault.
Map of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
One of the things that people often complain about in drunk driving accident situations is the unfairness of it all. Someone decides to get drunk, pick up their car keys and the thing they know, they’re being arrested for something they barely remember and another person is in the hospital or dead. I couldn’t agree more, alcohol is to blame for a lot of accidents these days — and not only alcohol, but the people drinking and providing the alcohol.
But, if we’ve learned anything from our Prohibition past, it’s that banning alcohol outright doesn’t exactly fix the problem. So we regulate it and we have specific rules about how you can sell and serve alcohol.
In Texas, accidents like this are often caused by someone who had been at a bar in the hours leading up to the accident. Everyone knows it’s illegal to drink and drive, but few people know that it’s also against the law for a bar to serve drinks to a drunk customer. The language in the Texas Dram Shop Act says that an “obviously intoxicated” person who “presents a clear danger to themselves or others” shall not be served alcohol. The problem is that not only do the customers break this rule, but so do the bartenders. In fact, the law takes it a step further and says that if an intoxicated person hurts or kills another person (due to a bar over-serving them), then the bar incurs liability for the injuries or death caused.
It’s a very fair way of treating the situation, if you think about it. The bar is punished for its part in an accident where an innocent person is hurt or killed, and the drunk driver faces the music as well. I don’t know where this particular driver had been earlier that night, but if it was at a bar, then that may explain what happened here.
— Grossman Law Offices
