Crystin Rheanne Keys, 21, pleaded guilty to weaving over the roadway in Rome, Ga., on Monday. She crashed an ambulance on June 16, killing the patient.The Puckett EMS driver who crashed an ambulance in June, killing the passenger, pleaded guilty today to weaving over the roadway.
Crystin Rheanne Keys, 21, paid an $84 fine, avoiding any jail time in the case. Rome Judicial Circuit Assistant District Attorney Kay Ann Wetherington also agreed not to prosecute Keys on a charge of vehicular homicide.
Wetherington did not return a call seeking comment late this afternoon. But Keys’ attorney, McCracken Poston, suggested this case may continue with a civil trial. Based on the discussions that led to the plea agreement, Keys would not be the target of the lawsuit.
The family of the victim, Tony Patterson, have hired Atlanta attorney Bradley Pratt. Poston said he and Pratt talked over the phone about a month ago, discussing how Patterson’s family would feel about a lenient plea agreement for Keys.
After consulting with his clients, Pratt told Wetherington the family did not want to see Keys face a vehicular homicide conviction, which could have put her in prison for years.
“This family showed a lot of compassion today,” Pratt said. “I’m tremendously impressed by them. We believe that there’s more to this story than just a horrible mistake by Ms. Keys. The family certainly wants justice for Tony. They want to understand the pressures these drivers are under. They want to understand the root cause of these accidents.”
Tony Marion Patterson, 55, died on June 16 when an ambulance he was in crashed on Martha Berry Highway in Rome, Ga.Pratt has not filed a lawsuit related to this crash.
On June 16, Poston said, Keys drove from Puckett EMS’ Rossville Boulevard station in Chattanooga to a nursing home in LaFayette. There, she picked up Patterson and was driving him to a hospital in Rome.
On Martha Berry Highway, around 4 a.m., she crashed the ambulance into a tree, according to an incident report. Patterson, 55, died.
Had the case gone to trial, Poston was going to argue the crash happened because of a medical condition. In the summer of 2016, he said, Keys blacked out in the company parking lot. A co-worker drove her to the hospital, and a doctor diagnosed her with a QT interval issue. Basically, her heat stops beating for a moment, he said. This causes her to black out occasionally.
Also, he said, she was five weeks pregnant at the time of the crash. She had stopped consuming energy drinks, which helped her drive through late night shifts.
Poston said Keys left Puckett EMS “in the last couple months,” though she had no complaints about how the company treated her. Puckett EMS also paid Poston to represent her.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.