A passed-out driver sped off Riverside Drive and crushed a parked truck, but stopped short of causing a Christmas Eve tragedy at the Fairview Sonic drive-in.
Tire marks in the snow traced the path of Robert Naranjo’s gray sedan through a chain-link fence, into the parking lot of a former Chevron gas station, over a dirt-and-wood wall and onto a burgundy sports-utility vehicle parked in the alley just south of the Sonic.
911 dispatchers had received a call around 11:30 a.m. from Karen Thomas, of La Mesilla, who reported an apparently unconscious Naranjo was stopped at the traffic light at Riverside Drive and Fairview Lane.
“His head was kind of just lolling to the side,” Thomas said. “He must have woke up and gunned it, because when I came back half an hour later, he was on top of the truck.”
The tire marks suggested that Naranjo, 25, of Española, accelerated to a high speed from a slow roll or dead stop at the intersection, Española Police Lt. Christian Lopez said. “There goes her Christmas Eve,” Lopez said of Maria Marquez, the Sonic employee who owns the truck that was crushed. “On the bright side, if the truck hadn’t been there, (Naranjo) would have continued forward and into the restaurant. And that would’ve been messy.”
Naranjo was not seriously injured in the crash, Española Police officer Danny Pacheco said.
Police were still unsure as of Monday afternoon whether Naranjo was conscious and in control of the vehicle at the time of the accident, Pacheco said. If toxicology reports suggest the accident was caused by medication used to treat Naranjo’s leukemia, he could be cited for DUI, Pacheco said. Naranjo received no citations at the scene.