Young drunk driver: ‘I’m lucky to be standing here today’

Drank Coronas and Jack Daniels, smoke marijuana, drove without headlights into a gully.

A YOUNG man's night out has left him injured, paying off a loan for a car he no longer can drive and disqualified from driving after he drove drunk, with no headlights, down a gully.

Joshua Paul Bartolo pleaded guilty in Rockhampton Magistrates Court on December 2 to one count of drink driving while on a provisional 1 licence and one count of driving without reasonable consideration for others.

Police prosecutor Clancy Fox said emergency services were called to a single vehicle crash on Baree Rd, Mount Morgan, at 4.13am.

He said Bartolo was being treated by paramedics and his vehicle was on its roof in the gully, engine turned off but emitting heat.

Mr Fox said the defendant told police he had six Coronas between 8pm-2am, along with shots of Jack Daniels and marijuana.

Bartolo's blood alcohol content reading was 0.118.

He said Bartolo told police he had not turned on his headlights and missed seeing the bend.

Bartolo told the court he left the residence because there had been a heated argument and he did not feel safe.

He said his vehicle had been written off and he was still paying off the loan for it.

Bartolo said he had only recently been able to start doing things he had been able to do prior to the crash.

"I'm lucky to be standing here today," he said.

Bartolo was fined $700 and disqualified from driving for six months.

He had been fined $1350, ordered to pay $850 restitution and banned from the Giddy Goat during a sentencing in Rockhampton Magistrates Court in May. He was 21 at the time. Read more here: Man banned from nightclub after bad drunken behaviour