Man charged in DWI crash that seriously injured several passengers

An 18-year-old who was behind the wheel in a rollover crash is accused of driving drunk, injuring multiple passengers, early Saturday morning in Northeast Albuquerque.

Police say one passenger, also 18, is not expected to survive and has already been determined to be paralyzed.

Eddie Madrid, who was also paralyzed in the single-vehicle crash, is charged with DWI-related great bodily harm by vehicle. If the passenger dies, that charge would likely become vehicular homicide.

The four other passengers were between 15 and 19 years old, according to police, and are expected to recover.

Madrid is in the hospital with a severed spine and, eventually, will be booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Madrid and at least one passenger told police the group had been drinking, according to court records, and the crash happened after an argument broke out in the truck.

Officers responded to the crash at San Mateo and Cherokee, south of Comanche, around 2 a.m., according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Police found several injured people lying in the roadway and at least one woman had been ejected from the truck when it rolled.

Police said Madrid and his passengers were taken to a hospital with various injuries. One woman, 19, told police they were drinking E&J and Jack Daniels when there was a big argument and Madrid “jerked the vehicle to the right and crashed it.”

Detectives spoke with Madrid at the hospital and, according to police, he smelled of alcohol and told the detective he drank four shots.

Madrid told police “the shots he drank were not large drinks since he was driving,” the complaint states.

Police said Madrid told them he remembered those in the truck arguing about him “flirting with another girl” before the crash but did not remember how it occurred. Madrid failed sobriety tests given to him — reciting the alphabet and counting backward — from his hospital bed.