SAN ANTONIO -- The officer who gave Jenny Ybarra her field sobriety test took the stand on Monday morning. He testified to how drunk Ybarra was when he made her walk the line. Ybarra is accused of crashing into the car Erica Smith was riding in four years ago.
The jury of 10 women and two men watched from the perspective of the driver's seat of the San Antonio Police Department squad car.
The dash-cam video captured the 27-year old Ybarra taking her tentative steps, following the officer's instructions. Ybarra had just exited her Silver Lexus, which police say she had driven the wrong way on Loop 410. Ybarra ended up striking another car head-on.
“I just remember seeing a flash of light right in front of me, literally right in front of me. And then, I guess I knocked out. I don’t know," said Sabrina Shaner, who also testified on Monday. She was behind the wheel of the car Ybarra hit. She suffered head injuries, cuts above her eye, bruised bones and sprains… but that was nothing, compared to her 23-year old passenger, Erica Nicole Smith.
“The next thing I remember is standing outside the vehicle looking in the passenger side window," Shaner testified. She was looking at Smith, whose injuries were so severe, paramedics thought she was already dead.
Shaner cried as she described what happened in the collision four years ago. Ybarra would later refuse a blood draw, but given the severe injuries in the crash, her blood was drawn anyway. She was recorded with a blood-alcohol level twice the legal limit.
“She was missing part of her skull on the right side. But they had it covered up. And her face was just swollen, bruised. It just didn’t look like her," Shaner recalled.
Paramedics were surprised to discover Shaner’s passenger had a pulse. And two hours after the accident, Smith was cut out of the car and transported to the hospital. She died the next day.
Authorities say Shaner was also drunk. She went to trial in May and received six months probation for her part in the wreck that claimed her friend’s life.
