A Columbus man is out of jail on bond after he allegedly hit an Ohio Wesleyan student with his car while driving drunk early Sunday morning.
Jason Batres, 24, struck OWU sophomore Cajsa Ohlsson, 20, while she was riding her bicycle west on Oak Hill Avenue, sending her flying from the bicycle onto the sidewalk. She sustained a severely broken left ankle, a dislocated left foot, a bad concussion and several scrapes and bruises, she said.
Batres fled the scene at about 50 miles per hour, the Delaware Police Department crash report said. Shortly afterward, officer Joseph Kolp found him parked about half a mile away on Montrose Avenue and arrested him for drunken driving. He was eventually sent to the county jail, where a breathalyzer test showed he was drunk at more than twice Ohio’s legal limit with a blood alcohol level of 0.163 percent.
Delaware Fire Department medics took Ohlsson, a resident of Tree House, to Grady Memorial Hospital, where she said she had surgery on her ankle later Sunday morning. She is back on campus today, staying in Welch Hall while her injuries heal because it “wouldn’t be physically possible” for her to live in Tree House, she said.
Batres’s driver’s license has been suspended and he is charged with aggravated vehicular assault, a third-degree felony that carries a maximum jail term of up to five years if he is convicted, according to the Ohio Revised Code.
“It’s definitely good that he got caught and gets punished for what he did, because drunk driving is one of the stupidest things you can do in my opinion,” Ohlsson said.