By Dale White
The Sarasota Herald Tribune
SARASOTA, Fla. — A driver who caused a three-vehicle wreck that seriously injured him and his two passengers evidently injected heroin immediately prior to the collision and had taken other narcotics, police say.
Authorities booked Matthew David Houmes, 25, of the 5900 block of Madrano Drive in Sarasota early Monday on eight felonies — including narcotics possession and multiple charges of driving under the influence involving serious injuries and property damage.
Houmes has since bailed out of Sarasota County jail.
On Nov. 21, a Toyota Camry that was eastbound on Fruitville Road turned left on Beneva Road into the path of a Sarasota County Area Transit bus and a Chevrolet pickup.
The SCAT bus struck the Camry on the front passenger side. Rescue workers had to peel off the Camry’s top to retrieve one of the injured passengers.
Police later identified Houmes as the driver of the Camry.
When an officer arrived, an arrest report states, Houmes was still in the driver’s seat trying to conceal several syringes and other drug paraphernalia in his pocket.
Police believe Houmes had just used a leather belt found on his lap as a tourniquet often associated with heroin injections.
A witness told the officer that the belt had been wrapped around the driver’s right bicep after the collision but before police arrived.
A forensic chemist later identified a brown powder from a plastic bag found in the car as heroin, police reported.
While inside an ambulance, another officer reported, Houmes spoke very slowly, “having to think about the most basic questions such as name, date of birth, age, address, etc. He kept dozing off. In several minutes he dozed off at least three times.”
At Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Houmes admitted to paramedics that he had injected heroin twice that day, the arrest report states.
An analysis by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab revealed that Houmes also had cocaine and two prescription medications in his blood, according to the report.
Two passengers in the Camry were hospitalized. An elderly woman on the bus and the driver of the pickup were treated for minor injuries at the accident scene.
In May 2007, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper cited Houmes for reckless driving after an accident at the northbound off-ramp of Interstate 75 at Fruitville Road. Although Houmes was not charged with drunken driving, the trooper made notations that the defendant “had been drinking” and “alcohol was a factor in the crash.” Prosecutors later dropped the reckless driving charge.
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