A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 15 for a Lyons man charged with injuring his friend in a drunken driving crash.
Cody A. Bauer, 25, was charged Jan. 16 in Walworth County Circuit Court with injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle causing great bodily harm; hit-and-run causing great bodily harm; and operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, second offense.
According to the criminal complaint, Bauer is suspected of rolling his parents’ Dodge Durango and striking a tree on Walbrandt Road in the Town of Lyons at about 2:20 a.m. Jan. 9. When police arrived, they saw drops of blood on the ground on the driver’s side of the car, a trail of blood around the back of the SUV toward the passenger side and a passenger in the SUV, according to the complaint.
The passenger had a lacerated spleen, two punctured lungs, multiple broken ribs and several broken vertebrae and was taken by Flight for Life ground transport to Summit Hospital, according to the complaint.
Bauer, the suspected driver, was found at his home. He told police he and the passenger had been drinking at the passenger’s girlfriend’s house and crashed the SUV after the passenger grabbed the steering wheel, according to the complaint. Bauer said he walked around the SUV to check on his friend, thought he was dead, panicked and walked home, the complaint states.
