A 30-year-old Avoca woman faces multiple felonies and misdemeanors in Brown County after police say she crashed her car on Helmsburg Road, left the scene and was later found to be driving while intoxicated.
Brown County Sheriff’s Deputy Austin Schonfeld reported that Rachel Hood was driving west on Helmsburg Road near Country Club Road when she ran off the north side of the road while coming down a hill on Sept. 16.
Her vehicle then struck an embankment before striking a pole, the report states. The crash happened just before 4 p.m.
Hood and a backseat passenger said that the injured front seat passenger — Dillon Scott, 31, Paoli — jerked the wheel and caused the wreck.
However, Scott told police that Hood was speeding and lost control.
By the officers arrived, Hood and the backseat passenger had run from the scene, but they were later found.
Scott was taken to Columbus Regional Hospital by ambulance for a fractured/dislocated shoulder/upper arm.
The police report says Hood’s blood-alcohol content was 0.12. Schonfeld reported smelling alcohol on her, seeing alcohol containers in the vehicle, that Hood’s speech was slurred and drawn out and that her eyes were bloodshot. She failed two field tests. She was arrested.
On Sept. 17, Hood was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated — endangering a person, a Class A misdemeanor; operating a vehicle with an ACE of 0.08 or more, a Class C misdemeanor; operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a Class C misdemeanor; leaving the scene of an accident with bodily injury, a Class A misdemeanor; and driving while suspended, a Class A misdemeanor.
The three OWI charges were elevated to Level 6 felonies because Hood was previously convicted of the charges in Monroe County in 2016.
