(La Porte, IN) - A man on fentanyl when he caused a New Prairie school bus collision that injured several junior varsity baseball players and coaches was given a nine year prison sentence Wednesday.
Shawn Akison, 42, of Romeoville, Illinois was also ordered to serve three years on probation and had his driver’s license suspended for two years.
The sentencing in La Porte Circuit Court followed the terms of a guilty plea convicting him of Level 4 felony operating while intoxicated causing catastrophic injury and Level 5 felony operating while intoxicated causing serious bodily injury.
Eight years of his prison sentence was for the injuries suffered by 17-year Lucas Bradshaw, who spent 54 days in a coma with a brain injury. Bradshaw returned home about four months after the crash and was in the courtroom with his parents for the sentencing.
He’s able to walk, talk and feed himself again following 8 to 10 hours a day of intensive therapy, which has since been scaled back to mostly once a week, his aunt, Brooklyn Mrozinski, told the packed courtroom. However, Mrozinski said her nephew once capable of doing chores like running a planter and helping to raise livestock on his family’s 1,500 acre farm still needs help with daily tasks, something he might require for the rest of his life.
She asked Judge Julianne Havens to consider the lifelong impact of the crash on Lucas and members of his family in deciding whether to accept the plea agreement.
“Accountability matters,” she said.
Bradshaw’s mother, Kelly, told the courtroom over tears that no parent should feel “so helpless” as she felt while seeing her son for the first time in the intensive care unit hooked to nearly a dozen tubes and wondering if he would survive. She said one of her son’s biggest goals now is to drive again before looking at Akison and telling him “today, you will face the consequences of your actions.”
Akison on May 8 of last year was behind the wheel of a box truck when he fled from a police officer in St. Joseph County trying to pull him over for erratic driving. Several minutes later, police said Akison at high speeds hit the back end of a mini-bus stopped for a traffic light on U.S. 20 at Fail Road just north of La Porte.
Bradshaw was ejected from the bus, which was pushed into another mini-bus carrying the rest of the team on its way to a game.
Assistant Coach and school board member Rich Shail spent nearly a week in the hospital with a fractured vertebrae in his back and other injuries such as broken ribs.
After sentencing, Shail said he’s getting around pretty good now but he doesn’t quite have the stamina he once had physically and it takes him longer to do certain things. He expressed mixed feelings about the sentence.
“I’m not in total agreement with it but I think it is fair. I’m just glad it’s over with. Let’s move forward,” he said.
