An Evans City ambulance driver likely will spend less than two years in prison for a drunken crash that killed two men.
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Shanea Climo, 23, a driver for Cranberry Ambulance, agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors to spend 11 1/2 to 23 months in the Allegheny County Jail for causing the Sept. 23, 2007, crash in Marshall that killed Douglas Stitt, 38, of Mercer and Phillip Bacon, 31, of Sharpsville.
Climo will be sentenced Feb. 25 for her guilty pleas Thursday to charges of involuntary manslaughter, drunken driving and reckless endangerment. She faced a maximum of 14 1/2 to 29 years.
"I would like to have seen her spend more time in jail, but I understand she also could have gotten no time," said Bacon’s mother, Deborah Bacon, 54, of Sharpsville. "I feel bad for her. I know there’s a God, and he’s a forgiving God, but he’s going to deal with her."
Prosecutors dropped felony charges of vehicular homicide. Climo’s attorney, Stephen Misko, said he was happy a plea agreement could be worked out.
"They gave up the felonies, but she’s going to do jail time," Misko said. "She’s not a bad person. It was a very unfortunate accident. If she could take back what she did, she’d do it in a minute."
A blood test an hour after the crash put her blood-alcohol content at .07 percent — below the .08-percent legal limit to drive, prosecutors said.
District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. initially said his office, using an extrapolation formula, could prove Climo’s blood-alcohol level was 0.092 percent at the time of the wreck, but prosecutors dropped the more serious drunken driving charges as part of the plea deal.
At least one judge and several defense attorneys, including Climo’s, have said that using extrapolation would be unfair because a 2003 overhaul of the state’s drunken driving laws essentially stripped defendants of the ability to use extrapolation as a defense.
Deputy District Attorney Bruce Beemer said the general drunken driving charge that Climo pleaded to acknowledges that she had at least some level of impairment.
"For that charge, you’re not legally drunk, but you’re impaired enough that you’re not able to drive safely," Misko said.
Beemer said Climo was traveling between 64 and 68 mph before she sped through a steady right light at the intersection of Route 19 and Brush Creek Road with a patient in the back. She slammed into the car Stitt was driving.
"She’s going to have to deal with herself. She’s going to have to know that she killed two people," said Stitt’s brother, Mark Stitt, 50, of Mercer. "It’s a relief that she can go to prison, but it still doesn’t bring him back."
Climo turned on the ambulance’s emergency lights but did not turn on the siren until 2.25 seconds before the crash, Beemer said.
