Rider Testifies Against Driver ‘I Told Him To Slow Down,’ Passenger Says

With a limp, Rick Van Horn took the stand Wednesday to recall a car wreck more than a year ago that left three people injured and car parts scattered over two blocks of Harrison Avenue.

He was testifying against Robert A. Thomas, 30, of Coeur d’Alene, who is charged with two counts of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol. The charges resulted from a Jan. 6, 1995, accident that left Van Horn’s sister, Vicky, in a coma for months.

Vicky Van Horn slowly is learning to walk, feed herself and talk again, her brother said. She may testify in this week’s trial.

The Van Horns caught a ride home from The Atrium bar with Thomas after an evening of drinking, dancing and playing pool. Vicky sat in her brother’s lap in the passenger seat of Thomas’ Corvette, Rick Van Horn testified.

“I told him to slow down,” Van Horn told the jury. “It was the wintertime. It was a 25 mile per hour zone. We all had been drinking. My sister was seated in my lap, and I was scared.”

Idaho State Police have said the Corvette was traveling 70 miles per hour when it hit a hill near Ninth Street that sent the car flying through the air. After it landed, it slammed into a telephone pole, hit the guy wire of another pole, and flipped.

The passengers, none of whom wore seat belts, were ejected. Rick Van Horn nearly lost an ear, was knocked unconscious for three days and suffered five broken vertebrae, as well as a temporary memory loss.

Thomas’ attorney, Kootenai County public defender Joel Ryan, is attempting to show that Vicky Van Horn interfered with Thomas’ driving, forcing him to drive faster than he intended.

Idaho State Police Cpl. Jordan Ferguson testified that Thomas told him in the emergency room the night of the accident that Vicky Van Horn “began fiddling with him or doing something to make him drive out of control.”

Van Horn said his sister did not reach over, nor encourage Thomas to drive fast. She was facing the passenger door with her feet between his.

Ryan successfully kept the prosecuting attorney from telling the jury Wednesday the results of Thomas’ blood alcohol test, arguing that the county’s expert witness could not verify that the blood sample was a true and pure sample.

Police have previously reported that Thomas’ blood alcohol level was over the limit considered legally drunk.

If convicted, Thomas faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on each charge, plus a $5,000 fine.

, DataTimes