A 40-year-old Richfield woman caused serious injuries to her child after driving drunk while the infant was unrestrained in a vehicle as it hit a tree, charges say.
Phethile Kunene, 40, was heading northbound on Interstate 35E near County Road 10 in Arden Hills on Jan. 19 when three other drivers noticed her speeding and swerving on the roadway and called 911, according to the criminal complaint filed Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court.
One of the drivers reported seeing a baby “unrestrained” in the backseat of Kunene’s Nissan Sentra, charges say.
The child was reportedly unbuckled inside a car-seat that was not restrained.
Kunene wound up rear-ending a vehicle in front of her, before speeding into a nearby ditch and crashing into a tree next to the freeway’s sound barrier.
The impact was so severe that the vehicle’ airbags deployed and Kunene was trapped inside the vehicle, the complaint said.
State troopers heard her screaming for help when they arrived at the scene and got her out of the Sentra.
Then an officer heard a child crying, and found Kunene’s seven-month old child “under/behind” Kunene’s driver’s seat.
The infant was bleeding profusely from the head, and was hospitalized for four days with a traumatic brain injury and skull fracture, according to the complaint.
Officers obtained a search warrant to get a sample of Kunene’s blood, and found her blood alcohol concentration was 0.178 shortly after the crash, charges say. The legal limit for driving is 0.08.
Kunene told troopers at the scene that she had “no idea why she was driving in northern Ramsey County” at the time, the complaint said.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged Kunene via warrant with one count of felony-level child endangerment, two counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in substantial bodily harm and DWI.
No attorney was listed for her in court records, nor was a court date scheduled in her case.
Kunene was convicted of a DWI in 2004.