A nurse at Vernon General Hospital told a Mountie that Jean-Paul Kowal’s blood-alcohol level tested three and a half times the legal limit, according to a blood sample taken hours after Kowal’s truck plowed into a small car, killing teenager Donovan Pippus.
Kowal is on trial in B.C. Supreme Court, charged with dangerous driving causing death, impaired driving causing death and causing an accident resulting in death from a crash on Sept. 1, 2010.
The court has heard four days of testimony from witnesses, including police, emergency officials and motorists who arrived at the accident scene on Highway 97A, north of Enderby.
Const. Milan Ilic testified he was given command at the accident scene to watch over Kowal, including accompanying him in an ambulance to hospital where he was treated for injuries.
Kowal told Ilic he could not give a breath sample to test his sobriety due to injuries he suffered in the crash.
During cross-examination defence lawyer Rishi Gill asked Ilic to confirm that Kowal agreed to provide a blood sample at the hospital. Ilic also agreed Kowal was showing no signs of impairment at the scene or in the hours afterward.
Witnesses earlier this week testified Kowal was speeding and driving recklessly in the moments before his truck entered the other lane on a turn, hitting Pippus’s small Pontiac head-on.
Kowal told Ilic he drank two glasses of wine at about 6 p.m. that evening, nearly six hours before the accident.
Police found several broken bottles of hard liquor in the back of the crew-cab truck.
