Moments after a Springvale drug addict injects heroin he crashes, has to be revived by paramedics
He’s had a long-term addiction to heroin, and crashed into a parked car moments after shooting up. His lawyer said the newly-married Springvale father was now clean, but the magistrate wasn’t convinced.
South East
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A drugged-up P-plate driver who injected heroin and then fell unconscious at the wheel before smashing into a parked car had to be revived by paramedics.
Police found Springvale 26-year-old Peter Nguyen slumped in the driver’s seat of his wrecked vehicle moments after he had shot up.
Paramedics administered the wake-up anti-opioid blocking drug naloxone before taking him to hospital after the serious smash, which totalled Nguyen’s car and caused severe damage to the other vehicle.
On Wednesday Dandenong Magistrates’ Court heard police were called to a bad accident in View Rd, Springvale at 2.30pm on September 5 last year.
They found Nguyen slumped against the steering wheel after his car had careered into the rear of a parked vehicle.
Officers then found an empty syringe on the driver’s seat between Nguyen’s legs.
He was unconscious and unable to be revived until paramedics treated him.
He told police he had taken a quarter of a point of heroin just before the smash.
He was also caught driving while suspended on Police Rd in Mulgrave in the early hours of February 14 this year, just six days into a 14-month ban for accruing too many demerit points.
His lawyer said Nguyen acknowledged he’d had a terrible problem in the past with drugs, but was now doing something about it.
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He said he’d had three clean drug tests this year, and since the birth of his baby and his marriage last October he had turned his life around.
He said he works two jobs, in Somerville and Carrum Downs, and his wife does all the driving now.
Magistrate Sharon McRae said she was not convinced Nguyen, who had a long history of drug-related offending, was now so free of opioids.
“He injects himself with heroin when sitting in a vehicle in September and crashes,” Ms McRae said.
“And all of a sudden now he has clean (drug) screens?
“How did he go from being a hopeless addict to someone not using anymore; it is a bit hard to believe.”
Nguyen was placed on a 12-month community corrections order, must undergo drug counselling and perform 100 hours of unpaid work.
He must also do a road safety awareness course and was banned from driving for two years.