Interstate crash prompts premature birth

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The emergency calls started coming in around 6:30 p.m. Monday reporting a driver going the wrong way on Interstate 25 near Santa Fe.

Just minutes later came the call of the three-vehicle crash with four people hurt, one of them an expectant mother with an unborn child whose life was now at risk.

Now the mother and newborn are in separate hospitals, and the Santa Fe woman believed responsible for the crash is in jail.

Santa Fe County sheriff's investigators say Leela Perez, 26, was behind the wheel of a green Subaru Outback driving south in the northbound lanes of I-25 near the exit to Eldorado southeast of Santa Fe.

Perez passed the exit before first striking the front of a Ford F-150 pickup truck and then a Nissan Altima before coming to a stop.

Perez told responding officers she had been drinking about two hours prior to the crash.

Tarra Tull, reported to be in her 29th week of pregnancy, was at the wheel of the pickup and suffered a placental abruption to her uterine wall, which caused potential fatal injuries for her baby.

Tull, 29, of Raton underwent emergency surgery at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe and delivered a baby boy.  The boy was later airlifted to the New Intensive Care Unit at UNM Hospital in Albuquerque and is reported to be doing well.

A passenger in Tull's truck, Maxamino Ortega, 60, of Raton, and the driver of the Nissan, Louana Abreau, 30, of Las Vegas, also were taken to Christus St. Vincent where they were treated for injuries and released.

Perez also was moved to UNM Hospital for treatment of an eye injury before being booked into the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Center on a charge of great bodily harm by vehicle.

In charging documents the responding deputy said Perez seemed disoriented and confused at first saying she was driving from her home but then saying she was driving to her home.

And even though she allegedly admitted to drinking two mixed drinks about two hours before the crash, she would not say where she had been drinking.

Unable to do field sobriety tests, deputies asked Perez to consent to give blood for an alcohol test.  After initially refusing, she gave consent.

Results of the blood draw are not yet known.

Any additional charges are pending, and the single charge of great bodily harm relates to the injuries to the infant.

"None of the adults had life-threatening injuries, so there's no great bodily harm there " Lt. Joe McLaughlin said.  "Right now the only person who at this point in time, for lack of a better term, would be in jeopardy would be the infant male."

The sheriff's office said that prior to this crash Perez had a clean driving record.

The crash happened on the same infamous stretch of road where Dana Papst killed five members of a family a few miles closer to Santa Fe in 2006.

It's believed Papst, 44, who had a blood alcohol level four times the legal limit, made a U-turn on the interstate after missing his exit and went the wrong way in the northbound lanes hitting a van carrying the Gonzales-Garcia family.

He killed himself, three girls and their parents.  The only survivor was Arissa Garcia, who was 15 at the time.

Papst had five prior DWI arrests and was said by witnesses to be drunk when he got off a plane at the Albuquerque Sunport earlier in the evening.