Driver Charged After Man In Wheelchair Hit Victim Was Left Lying In Road As Wheelchair Dragged Away
Seven months after a wheelchair-bound man was run down by a truck and left lying in the road, a Coeur d’Alene man has been charged in connection with the crime.
On Friday, Coeur d’Alene prosecutors charged Terry G. Calvert, 43, with failure to give immediate notice of an injury accident, a misdemeanor crime.
“I’m glad they have someone,” Robert Quast said Friday. “That was awful what happened.”
Quast, 43, of Coeur d’Alene, suffers from cerebral palsey and depends on an electric scooter-type wheelchair to get around.
On March 14, he was rolling west down Sherman Avenue late at night on his way to meet his mother.
As Quast crossed the entrance into Henry’s Restaurant, a large vehicle pulled out of the restaurant’s parking lot and smashed into him.
He was thrown to the ground. The driver didn’t stop.
As it left, the vehicle dragged Quast’s wheelchair 200 yards, leaving pieces scattered along the road, according to Coeur d’Alene Police reports.
Quast was taken to the hospital with an injured ankle.
He told police that the vehicle that hit him was large, red and similar to a Bronco or Blazer.
Capt. Carl Bergh said their investigation led to Calvert.
“The investigation showed that Mr. Calvert was driving a vehicle similar to the one that Mr. Quast described,” he said.
Calvert was driving a 1983 red GMC Jimmy, Bergh said.
Calvert was also identified as the last person to leave Henry’s Restaurant, Bergh said. He left around the time Quast was hit.
Efforts to reach Calvert for comment were unsuccessful.
“I really don’t know what to think,” Quast said Friday.
His wheelchair was destroyed in the accident. Disc jockeys from Spokane’s KEZE radio station raised $4,000 to buy him a new wheelchair.
Quast now scoots to and from his job at the Iron Horse Restaurant in his new, brightly lit scooter.
But even with the fancy lights, he worries about being hit again.
“It shouldn’t have happened at all,” he said.
“People should look both ways before they try and take the right of way from someone else.”
, DataTimes