Trial Set In Aggravated Dui Case Two Passengers Seriously Injured When Man Crashed Corvette

Eight months after Robert Allan Thomas shattered his Corvette in a grisly wreck, his two passengers are still struggling to patch together their lives.

After more than an hour of testimony at Wednesday’s preliminary hearing, Magistrate Patrick McFadden set a trial date in October. Thomas, 29, was released on his own recognizance.

Thomas faces two counts of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol. Kootenai County Deputy Prosecutor Scot Nass said each count carries up to five years in prison, a $5,000 fine and a one-year suspension of driving privileges. Thomas was convicted of drunken driving and possession of drug paraphernalia in 1984.

Police described finding Thomas’ 1992 Corvette scattered across two city blocks. His passengers, a brother and sister, lay unconscious and bloody in the street. Thomas’ blood alcohol level was .11, just over the .10 level considered legally intoxicated.

The Corvette was going at least 70 mph when it flew into the air on a hill near Ninth Street and Harrison Avenue, Idaho State Police Cpl. Doug Orr testified Wednesday. The speed limit is 25.

The car landed, skidded, slammed into a pole, struck a guy wire holding up another telephone pole, and flipped. Thomas and his passengers, none wearing seat belts, were flung from the tumbling car.

“He put our lives in his hands,” said passenger Rick Van Horn, 36. “He was showing off to my sister.”

The crash shattered Rick Van Horn’s spine. It took doctors 130 stitches to sew up his scalp, and another 200 to reattach his ear.

Vicky Van Horn couldn’t testify. She’s in the brain injury unit of St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute in Spokane. Until six weeks ago, the 34-year-old office worker was in a coma. Now she speaks haltingly. She can’t feed herself or move her arms.

Thomas leafed through documents, a pen in his mouth, as Rick Van Horn described visiting his sister in the hospital.

“I feed her, comb her hair, brush her teeth. I take her for a walk in her wheelchair,” he said. “Basically, I take care of her.”

After meeting and dancing with Vicky Van Horn the night of Jan. 6, Thomas offered her and her brother a ride home, Van Horn testified.

“We didn’t even know who he was,” Van Horn said.

In his cross-examination, Thomas’ attorney suggested that the woman egged Thomas on, trying to get him to go fast.

At the end of the hearing, Thomas donned sunglasses and brushed out of the courtroom, declining comment.

The Van Horns’ mother waited outside the courtroom during the hearing. Sharon Van Horn described her daughter as a vivacious, full-of-life woman who liked to ski, bicycle, swim and fish.

“I wish it never happened,” the mother said. “I want her to be whole. That’s what she keeps telling me - ‘I want to be like I was before.”’

She said she’s never met or seen Thomas.

“Some days, when she’s crying and I look at her, I want to kill him,” Van Horn said. “Other times, I just don’t care.”

The medical bills are more than $440,000 so far, said Sharon Van Horn.

“And that’s not the end of it,” she said. “This is just the beginning.”

, DataTimes