A Grand Forks woman, who's facing felony charges in a two-vehicle crash that caused a man's leg to be amputated below the knee pleaded not guilty today in state District Court.
Karen Vatnsdal, 52, is charged with drunken driving, along with aggravated assault for allegedly injuring 37-year-old Michael Hart. She has a pretrial hearing set for Jan. 27.
The evening of Oct. 17, Hart stopped his pickup on DeMers Avenue just west of Columbia Road in the right lane to retrieve an item that had fallen out of the bed of the pickup, police said.
A car driven by Vatnsdal in the same westbound lane slammed into Hart and pinned him momentarily between the tailgate of his pickup and the car, police said.
Hart was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis with the hope that his shattered leg could be repaired, but attempts to do so were unsuccessful.
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A test showed that Vatnsdal had a blood-alcohol level of .22 percent at the time of the crash, prosecutor Nancy Yon said today. The legal limit for driving in North Dakota is .08 percent.
Right after the crash, Vatnsdal's passenger, Justin Teague, allegedly assaulted Hart and a man who had stopped to help Hart. Authorities said Teague was intoxicated and threatened to kill the good Samaritan as well as police officers.
Teague, 33, of Grand Forks, is charged with two counts of assault and two counts of terrorizing. He remains in custody and is set to be arraigned Monday. A message left for his attorney, Jay Knudson, was not returned today.
