Lawsuit: Bus driver in fatal crash had THC in his system
Family accuses company of failing to properly train, supervise employee
The driver of a bus carrying members of an Albuquerque church youth group that crashed north of Pueblo, Colo., in June might have been impaired by marijuana, says a lawsuit filed Thursday by a family with passengers injured in the crash.
According to the complaint, filed Wednesday in state District Court in Santa Fe, an autopsy report showed driver Anthony Padilla, one of two people who died in the crash, had tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — a psychoactive element of cannabis — in his system at the time.
Maria Montoya Chavez and her husband, Leland Chavez, filed the complaint against the bus company, Follow The Sun Inc., on behalf of themselves and their 16-year-old daughter.
The mother and daughter were passengers on the bus, according to their complaint, and were among more than a dozen people injured.
Maria Montoya Chavez was thrown through the windshield, the complaint says, and sustained injuries that required an extended hospitalization and “what will be months and months if not years of working toward recovery.”
The couple’s daughter suffered a head injury, multiple abrasions and contusions, a muscle strain in her neck and “cuts from shards of glass that stuck in her back,” the complaint says.
In addition to her physical injuries, the lawsuit says, the daughter suffered emotional trauma “when she initially could not find her mother and
then once she found her, believed her mother might die right there on the side of the road.”
The family is seeking compensation for their medical bills as well as lost wages for Leland Chavez, who has had to miss work to help his wife and daughter with their recovery.
The lawsuit accuses Follow the Sun of failing to properly investigate Padilla before hiring him and then failing to properly train and supervise him.
The bus trip to a religious conference in Denver was Padilla’s first interstate trip as a commercially licensed bus driver, according to the complaint.
The Chavezes claim the company did not conduct a background check on Padilla; if it had, they allege, it would have discovered the inexperienced bus driver had citations on his record that included speeding by 15 to 21 mph over the speed limit and failing to stop at an intersection.
No one answered the phone at Follow the Sun — whose website says the company is the “official tour operator for Spaceport America” — on Thursday, and the company’s voicemail box was full.
The Colorado State Patrol told The New Mexican in June the bus struck a bridge abutment before it veered off Interstate 25 southbound on its way back to New Mexico. The agency said at the time it suspected the driver had a medical incident that caused the crash, but investigators were waiting for an autopsy report.
The agency did not return a call seeking comment Thursday.
Michael E. Sievers, one of the Chavezes’ lawyers, said he didn’t know the level of THC found in Padilla’s blood.
His firm has not received updated information on the cause of the crash from the Colorado State Patrol, he added, but he noted the autopsy report does not say Padilla had a medical episode.