Woman Who Crashed Truck Through Winters Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison

A Daly City woman who injured seven people when she crashed her truck through the wall of has been sentenced to five years in state prison.

Carla Jean Andres, 51, had spent the evening of Jan. 29, 2011 drinking shots and beer at the bar when she got into her Chevy truck close to 2 a.m., according to the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office.

Andres -- whose blood alcohol content was later measured at .20 percent, more than twice the legal limit -- failed to make a U-turn outside the bar, and a patron told her to park her truck while he called a taxi, prosecutors said.

The defendant then revved her engine and slammed through the bar, striking as many as six people and temporarily pinning a seventh against an inside wall, prosecutors said.

Andres pleaded no contest to felony DUI causing great bodily injury in November.

The incident was Andres' third DUI conviction since 1998, in addition to an alcohol-related "wet-and-reckless" conviction in 2005, according to prosecutors.

Two victims who were struck by Andres' truck as it crashed through the bar testified at her sentencing hearing in San Mateo County Superior Court Tuesday.

Both said their lives were forever changed by the incident, mostly due to lingering injuries that included a "blown out" knee, a sprained ankle, a sprained wrist and a chipped hip.

Judge Lisa Novak called the drunk driving case a "nightmare" and said that Andres continued to show a "lack of insight" with regards to her obvious alcoholism.

In addition to the five-year prison sentence, Andres will be required to pay restitution to the bar owners whose property was damaged and patrons who were injured, in an amount to be determined at a restitution hearing later this year.

--Bay City News

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