(La Porte County, IN) - A man has admitted to driving impaired when he crashed into a New Prairie High School bus last year, badly injuring a junior varsity baseball player and assistant coach.
Shawn Akison, 42, pleaded guilty Friday in La Porte Circuit Court to operating while intoxicated causing catastrophic injury, a level 4 felony and operating while intoxicated causing serious bodily injury, a Level 5 felony.
The Romeoville, Illinois man agreed to serve an eight-year prison sentence for the injuries suffered by then 16 year old Lucas Bradshaw and one additional year in prison for the harm to assistant coach and school board member Richard Shail.
Akison, who tested positive for fentanyl in his bloodstream after the crash, would also serve three years on probation. The sentence will be handed down on April 29 if Judge Julianne Havens accepts the terms of the plea agreement, which she took under advisement.
Bradshaw was in a coma for an extended period with a brain injury but walked out of a rehabilitation center with little assistance four months after the crash.
Shail suffered a broken vertebrae, fractured ribs and other injuries but recovered enough to attend the high school graduation ceremony as a school board member about a month after the accident.
His wife, Nancy, said her husband continues to improve but “still struggles with some of his mobility.”
According to authorities, Akison fled from a police officer in St. Joseph County who tried stopping him for erratic driving just prior to colliding with the back end of a mini-school bus stopped for a traffic light in La Porte County at U.S. 20 and Fail Road. Bradshaw was ejected from the mini-school bus, which flipped over.
Akison then struck the back end of a semi-trailer before hitting the side of a second mini-school bus carrying the rest of the team at the traffic light. The team was on its way to a game in Hobart at the time of the crash. Police said Akison was traveling at high speeds and using a cell phone at the time of the crash.
La Porte County Prosecutor Sean Fagan said the plea agreement, if accepted, will keep the victims and others on the bus from having to relive the experience by not having to testify at trial.
“To potentially take this to trial and have them retraumatized is not something we want to do and it’s not in the best interest of the victims, the injured, the young men, the coaches in this case,” he said.
Fagan said he also felt the plea agreement achieves justice by containing a sentence similar to what he would have received had he been found guilty at trial.
