Laura Vanessa Rojas Rubiano: Gold Coast aged care manager, 34, guilty of high-range DUI crash

A well-regarded manager at a Gold Coast aged-care facility crashed at Robina while more than three times the legal blood-alcohol limit. Her lawyer says she was distressed due to client deaths.

Varsity Lakes woman Laura Vanessa Rojas Rubiano, 34. Picture: Facebook

A well-regarded clinical care manager at a Gold Coast aged-care facility crashed at Robina while more than three times the legal blood-alcohol limit, a court has heard.

Varsity Lakes woman Laura Vanessa Rojas Rubiano, 34, pleaded guilty in Southport Magistrates Court on Friday to a charge of driving while under the influence of liquor (i.e. high-range).

The court heard the crash occurred on August 18 last year at about 12.20am on Cheltenham Drive at Robina.

Rojas Rubiano was driving home with her husband from a boozy night with friends at Burleigh Heads when she veered off the roadway to the left and struck a guardrail.

A passing ambulance on another job called for a second unit, who were treating Rojas Rubiano for a nasty cut on her foot (which required five stitches), when a police vehicle happened to pass and stopped to render assistance.

Paramedics informed officers the defendant “smelt like alcohol,” and subsequent bloods taken at Robina Hospital revealed Rojas Rubiano had a blood-alcohol content of 0.181 per cent.

Defence lawyer Billy Gee told the court his client — who emigrated from Colombia in 2010, studied at Griffith University and rose to become a manager at the Gold Coast facility run by one of Australia’s largest operators, Opal HealthCare — had drunk more than she intended to on the night in question due to distress caused by the deaths of a number of longstanding clients of the home.

Defence lawyer Billy Gee. Picture: Potts Lawyers

Mr Gee said his client’s $30,000 vehicle, a Mazda CX-30 she had purchased only months prior, was written off, so she and her husband had been forced to buy a new vehicle, also at a cost of about $30,000.

Mr Gee noted his client had a largely irrelevant, minor traffic history, and submitted the crash was out of character for his client.

Magistrate Wettenhall fined Rojas Rubiano $900 and disqualified her from driving for eight months (she has already been off the road since she was charged on December 1 last year).

No conviction was recorded on the basis it would interfere disproportionately with her career.

Originally published as Laura Vanessa Rojas Rubiano: Gold Coast aged care manager, 34, guilty of high-range DUI crash