An Ohkay Owingeh man has been summoned to magistrate court for an alleged drunk driving crash that sent him to an Albuquerque hospital and left two other people injured.
Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Deputy John Greene filed the criminal complaint against Christian Tapia, 23, for aggravated DUI resulting in bodily injury, reckless driving and two counts of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm.
In a criminal complaint, Greene wrote that the crash happened June 28, on State Road 76 in Cordova. Greene’s narrative for the charges is just four paragraphs long.
While he was en route, dispatchers told him it was a two-vehicle crash, one vehicle was on fire and one man was lying on the ground. When he got there, he saw two crashed cars, blocking the road.
One was parked in the middle of the road and the other, on fire, was sitting on the guardrail, Greene wrote.
He started “assisting with patient care” while waiting for medics. While helping with the medical response, he talked with Tapia, who told him he “consumed four to six shots of alcohol at approximately 1200 hrs,” Greene wrote. The deputy did not write when he was sent to the crash.
He saw Tapia had bloodshot, watery eyes and could smell alcohol on his breath, he wrote. Tapia was transported to the Española Hospital and there, Greene read him the state’s implied consent advisory and Tapia agreed to a blood draw.
He was then flown by helicopter to The University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque due to his injuries, he wrote.
Greene did not write the extent of the injuries of the other two people, Irene Panas and Jeff Montoya.
Clerk Roberta Morfin sent the criminal summons to Tapia on Aug. 22. He is supposed to appear on Sept. 8 for an arraignment via phone.
While Greene filed the criminal complaint on June 30, and it was stamped as received by the magistrate court on that date, the case was not entered into the system, and given a case number until Aug. 22.
The only previous state court case for Tapia is from 2021, when he was cited for careless driving and speeding 16-20 mph in a construction zone.