DWIs charged in three separate crashes in five months resulting in death, serious injury

Ozark County has seen a sobering number of fatalities and serious injuries resulting from crashes this year. According to charges filed by the Ozark County Prosecutor’s Office this week, at least three separate Ozark County crashes in a five-month span may be the result of drivers operating vehicles while drunk or high on drugs. Two of the serious crashes occurred within the same stretch of Highway 5 south of Gainesville.

Patricia Hobbs, 68, of Jordan, Arkansas, is now charged with “DWI- death of another (not a passenger)”  in connection with a Feb. 17 crash on Highway 5 about a half-mile south of W Highway. Hobbs is alleged to have “operated a motor vehicle while under the influence of oxycodone, clonazepam and midazolam, controlled substances, and acted with criminal negligence by crossing the center of the roadway and impacting another vehicle head-on,” according to the prosecutor’s felony complaint.

Michael “Micky” Clark, 59, of Flippin, Arkansas, the driver of the other vehicle, died as the result of the crash. Court documents in Hobbs’ case also indicate that Clark himself was arrested at the scene of the crash for driving while intoxicated with alcohol before he was transported to Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, Arkansas, where he died of his injuries. 

If convicted of the class B felony charge, Hobbs will face between five and 15 years in prison. 

See page 7 for more information on Hobbs’ case.

Gregory McGee, 62, of Gainesville, has been charged with driving while intoxicated causing serious physical injury to another person in connection with a June 30 crash, also on Highway 5 about a half-mile from W Highway, in nearly the same spot as the Hobbs-Clark crash. McGee is alleged to have “operated a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, and acted with criminal negligence by failing to drive in a single lane, crossing the centerline of the road and striking an oncoming vehicle.”

As a result of the crash, McGee’s vehicle burst into flames. Emergency responders and other drivers who stopped to help were able to free McGee, but he was seriously injured. The passenger in the other vehicle, 31-year-old Joshua Randolph, also of Gainesville, was partially ejected through a window, and his vehicle came to rest on top of half of his body. He was extracted from the vehicle and flown by air ambulance to Cox South Hospital in Springfield. 

Randolph reportedly sustained head and face fractures, including a broken jaw. He also had a broken femur, ribs, pelvis and hips. He has undergone several extensive surgeries including rebuilding at least one of his knees “with plates and screws,” his mother, Brenda Miller told the Times shortly after the accident. 

If McGee is convicted of the class D felony, he faces up to four years in prison. 

See page 7 for more information on the McGee case. 

Tanner Jennings, 18, of Theodosia, has been charged with driving while intoxicated causing serious physical injury to another person and leaving the scene of an accident with physical injury in connection with a July 18 incident in which he is alleged to have been driving a truck when another teenager fell out of the back, hit the asphalt and severely injured his head. 

“The defendant operated a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and acted with criminal negligence by allowing passengers to ride in an open truck bed traveling at unsafe speeds and unexpectedly accelerating and as a result caused serious physical injury to Cooper High,” according to the complaint filed by the prosecutor. 

The incident reportedly occurred on W Highway in Pontiac after Jennings and several other teens had left a party that involved alcohol. Jennings was reportedly driving a truck with passengers riding in the bed at 1:20 a.m. July 18 when one of the passengers reportedly fell from the bed of the truck and hit the asphalt, sustaining a serious head injury. Jennings left the scene of the accident and later told officers that he’d been told by another party goer, who said he was on the fire department, that he knew medical personnel were on the way and that Jennings should go home. An officer told Jennings he should have stayed at the scene unless a law enforcement officer told him to leave.

If convicted of the charges, Jennings faces up to four years in prison for the DWI charge. 

See page 7 for more information on Jennings’ case.