Paicines
– A Morgan Hill man was charged with drunken driving after a
dune buggy rollover on a Panoche Road ranch near Paicines sent him
and another man to the hospital with head injuries Saturday
evening.
Paicines – A Morgan Hill man was charged with drunken driving after a dune buggy rollover on a Panoche Road ranch near Paicines sent him and another man to the hospital with head injuries Saturday evening.
Phillip Anthony Middleton, a 25-year-old Morgan Hill resident, was charged with driving under the influence by the California Highway Patrol when he rolled a homemade, two-seat dune buggy in the 21000 block of Panoche Road at 4:50pm, CHP Officer Brad Voyles said.
Middleton and passenger Gregory Bumb, a 19-year-old San Jose resident, suffered cuts to their heads and were taken by ambulance to Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, CHP Officer Brent Townsend said. From Hazel Hawkins, they were flown by two helicopters to Regional Medical Center of San Jose, he said.
“They were jumping it, which they had done on several attempts prior to the crash,” Townsend said.
The two men jumped the dune buggy approximately 50 feet, landed it on its front end, continued another 30 feet and rolled the vehicle once, coming to rest on its tires, Townsend said. Although the men were jumping the vehicle on soft ground, the homemade roll cage collapsed during the crash, Townsend said.
Witnesses told investigators that Middleton went in and out of consciousness at the scene of the crash, Townsend said.
“He smacked his melon pretty good,” Voyles said.
Although the crash occurred on private property, the CHP has the authority to investigate and issue citations, Voyles said. It is not rare for the CHP to be called to crashes on private property and investigate for drunken driving, Voyles said.
“DUI applies to all motorized vehicles on or off the roadway,” he said.
