Diabetes care an issue in traffic death charges
| Friday, May 28 2010 06:15 PM
Last Updated Friday, May 28 2010 06:15 PM
Felony charges against a Tehachapi man in the traffic death of a woman last summer were not filed because he has diabetes, but because he recklessly didn't control it, prosecutors said Friday.
A defense attorney for 59-year-old Leonard Campos Jr. of Tehachapi, however, said he didn't think it was fair to charge Campos because he might not have been as successful in controlling his diabetes as other patients.
Charges of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and reckless driving were filed against Campos in the Aug. 28, 2009, crash that killed 64-year-old Margaret Mikkelsen as she was gardening in her front yard at Bear Valley and Cumberland roads. He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for further hearings in July.
Supervising Deputy District Attorney Michael Yraceburn said filing charges in a diabetes-related crash is unusual, but it is not unusual to file such charges when negligence with reckless indifference to human life is a factor in a traffic death.
A brief Bear Valley Police report in the court file says that prior to the collision, Campos admitted to being sick with diabetes, acknowledged ignoring his diabetic alarms and disregarded his passenger's demands to stop and pull over.
Bear Valley police reported an 18-year-old man was in the pickup with Campos when the speeding truck hit a mound of dirt and became airborne, struck a utility pole and rolled several times before coming to rest on top of Mikkelsen. Her husband, John, found her dead. Attempts to reach him Friday were unsuccessful.
Campos was also seriously injured in the crash and was airlifted to Kern Medical Center with head injuries, police reported.
He also could not be reached Friday, but he told KGET-TV reporters that "I was unconscious the whole time because I don't remember any of that." He said he was at a store five minutes before the crash buying beer and ice (Yraceburn said alcohol was not a factor in the crash) and he didn't buy anything to elevate his blood-sugar because he didn't feel any need to.
The police report said Campos' blood glucose level was in the 40s (milligrams per deciliter). Normal is 70 to 100, reported Dr. Edward S. Horton, head of clinical research at Joslin Diabetes Center, in a 2008 informational report. Horton said if blood sugar drops below 50 and/or as low as 40 or 30 or even 20, then there is a progressive loss of mental function and eventually unconsciousness and seizures.
The Bear Valley police report said Campos "became incapacitated and accelerated to dangerous speeds, eventually causing a fatality."
Yraceburn added that Bear Valley Police investigated not only Campos' driving pattern before the crash, but also his past history, which showed "a willful and deliberate ignoring of his diabetes" condition. "He was endangering other people," Yraceburn said.
Defense attorney Ellery Sorkin of Encino, a friend of the Campos family, said he didn't believe a medical condition or unsuccessful attempts to control it should be reasons to file vehicular manslaughter charges. Sorkin said he has just begun his review of the case.
The Campos case was reminiscent of the negligence by an elderly man with medical problems who in 2003 killed 10 people and injured 70 others at a Farmer's Market in Santa Monica, Yraceburn said. The sentencing judge noted George Russell Weller plowed into people but avoided parked cars and trucks.
Weller was 89 years old in 2006 when he was convicted of the same charge, though defense attorneys claimed he just got confused by stepping on the accelerator rather than the brake. The judge sentenced him to probation rather than up to 18 years in prison because he was so ill.
