'Guilty But Insane' Plea In Drunk Driving Crash

A Klamath Falls man charged with a drunk driving crash that critically injured two men enters a plea of ‘guilty, but insane’…

Robert Glenn says he doesn’t remember just how we was first injured early on the morning of December 19th, 2011…but he knows he somehow wound up drunk, and on the side of the highway.

Jeff Quigley of California had stopped on Highway 97 south of Klamath Falls to help Glenn, when Chet Newell – the man Glenn was drinking with – rammed into the back of Quigley’s pickup.

“I was laying on the side of the road. He came and hit, struck the guy that was helping me.” Recalled Robert Glenn. “And I was injured even worse when the truck came over the top of me.”

Glenn admits to drinking with Newell earlier that night…and had been hoping to get hired by Newell’s employer.

“That obviously didn’t happen.” Notes Glenn. “I ended up in the hospital for six days, almost died.”

Chet Newell pled ‘guilty, but insane’ to drunk driving and two counts of second-degree assault…in a crime that left Glenn with skull fractures and a broken back.

Doctors say Newell is developmentally disabled. And rather than do prison time, Newell will spend 10 years in a foster home…a sentence Glenn isn’t happy with.

“Yeah, I think that’s a slap on the wrist. I don’t think that’s very serious.”

Police say Newell’s blood alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit following the crash.

While Glenn was awarded 50 thousand dollars in damages from Newell’s insurance company in a civil suit, Glenn says that won’t cover his 200 thousand dollars in medical bills.