A 26-year-old Surrey man who caused a six-car crash when he swerved into oncoming traffic while high on crack has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison.
Jason Brewer, who pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing bodily harm in connection to the crash, also received a 10-year-driving ban. Judge Selwyn Romilly sentenced Brewer on June 13 to four-and-a-half years for the crash, and one year for causing an unrelated police pursuit on Dec. 31, 2012 in Abbotsford and Langley.
In November 2009, according to online court documents, Brewer was at the wheel of a Ford F350 company vehicle while high after consuming crack cocaine, driving eastbound at a high rate of speed on Highway 10 just west of 192 Street in Surrey.
Witnesses say Brewer suddenly swerved the truck at an almost 45 degree angle into oncoming traffic, causing a six-vehicle collision involving 13 people.
Two of the victims, Hans Flores and Tammy Taylor, suffered life-threatening injuries. Flores had two broken legs, a broken femur, broken ribs, deep facial cuts and a collapsed lung, while Taylor had a left elbow fracture, a shattered ankle, multiple fractures and facial injuries including broken nose and teeth. The crash left at least two other people with injuries that required therapy.
Brewer was not injured in the crash. Flores and Taylor both wrote victim impact statements saying their lives were destroyed because of constant pain and hardship since the crash. Flores wrote that he is having a hard time coping financially, physically and emotionally. “I sometimes feel mentally and spiritually that it would have been better to have died that day,†he wrote.
Taylor suffers from nightmares and physical pain.
- Tiffany Crawford is a reporter with the Vancouver Sun