DUI penalties can begin increasing in severity when you’re not just caught driving under the influence by the police. If there is a crash and injuries are involved, you can face much more serious charges than a misdemeanor. Severe injuries and death can result in felony DUI charges. As the Palo Alto Patch reports, one woman is facing these kinds of serious charges.
A Saturday night crash on El Camino Real has left one woman dead and another injured while the driver has been arrested on charges of DUI and vehicular manslaughter causing injury.
Palo Alto police and fire personnel were dispatched just after 10:40 p.m. to the 3300 block of El Camino Real.
53-year-old Vera Shpilman “drifted out of her lane and struck an unoccupied vehicle parked along the west curb line.” This is when the vehicle Shpilman was driving was turned sideways and ended up in the middle of the roadway, where it was struck by another vehicle.
Emergency personnel arrived to find two passengers trapped in the vehicle that Shpilman was driving. They were both transported to an area hospital. One of those passengers, identified as 80-year-old Lyubov Rapoport, died of her injuries. The other passenger, who was unidentified, survived.
Shpilman did not receive any injuries as a result of the crash. She was booked into the Santa Clara County Jail.
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