Woman With 0.14 BAC Hits Amish Buggy Carrying Five, Including Baby — Then Flees Wrong Way On Highway

An intoxicated 25-year-old woman struck an Amish buggy in Kosciusko County, Indiana several days ago, leaving behind multiple injured victims, and ultimately a trail of ugliness.

And I say this is one of the uglier such stories, for several reasons. Those include what happened to the Amish victims involved – but especially for this person’s alleged behavior after the wreck happened.

A Series of Bad Decisions

Jakaila Marlyne Miracle, 25, was, by all accounts, intoxicated when she plowed into an Amish buggy on State Road 19, south of Nappanee. Her decision-making afterwards – including after being taken into custody – leaves you shaking your head.

First, the aftermath of the crash was an ugly scene, as reported at Ink Free News:

According to court documents, upon arrival at the scene, officers saw Mabel Miller, 43, a passenger in the buggy, with blood running down her face and bandages around her head.

Lori Miller, 41, an additional passenger, was unconscious at the scene. Alivia Schwartz, an infant who had been in the buggy, was flown to Lutheran Fort Wayne.

After striking the buggy, Miracle allegedly fled the scene. She was then located 20 minutes after the wreck, after someone called to report a vehicle driving the wrong way down US 30, a four-lane divided highway:

About 20 minutes after the accident occurred, 911 dispatch received a call about a Ford Fusion driving eastbound in the westbound lanes of US 30, in the area of CR 800W, Etna Green.

A Warsaw Police officer located the vehicle in the area of US 30 and CR 350W, Warsaw. The Ford Fusion had significant damage to its passenger side. Miracle was identified as the Fusion’s driver.

She then attempted to obscure what happened, but all signs pointed to intoxicated driving:

Miracle allegedly denied being in an accident and said she hit a deer several weeks ago. Officers noticed Miracle was slurring her words and asked if she had consumed alcohol. Miracle denied drinking and said she just got off work.

On a poor sample for a portable breath test, Miracle’s results were 0.14% BrAC. Law enforcement also located alcoholic beverages inside Miracle’s vehicle.

Technical note: A “poor sample” indicates the breath test was taken under less-than-ideal conditions — such as insufficient breath volume. The actual figure may have been higher.

Taking a moment for a bit of good news – fortunately, though she was flown to hospital, it turned out the baby was unhurt – the only one of the five on board who didn’t sustain injuries.

The other four passengers’ injuries range from a broken leg, broken eye sockets, and lacerations, to one victim who remains in intensive care with a brain bleed. Let’s hope they all recover fully.

The Charges

Miracle racked up seven charges for her actions, including six felonies:

• Three counts of causing serious bodily injury when operating a vehicle with an ACE of 0.08 or more, all level 5 felonies
• Operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a class C misdemeanor
• Three counts of battery by bodily waste to a public safety officer, all level 6 felonies

The last charges relate to how Miracle behaved once at a hospital to be tested. According to the report, she “became verbally aggressive and began to flail around”.

I won’t describe in detail here exactly how it happened (it’s rather gross, though you can read it at the source link), but suffice to say she then managed to get urine on three police officers. Miracle was booked into the Kosciusko County Jail, with bond set at $20,000. She has an initial hearing June 4.

With Drivers Like This…There’s Only So Much You Can Do With The Buggy

This person needs help and is downright lucky no one died.

A lot of discussion has been had over how to make Amish buggies safer, from the point of view of the buggy vehicle itself. Efforts are frequently keyed on ways to make buggies more visible to car drivers, often focusing on lighting.

In as similar vein, at the ends of these posts, I often include a video I did sharing guidelines for driving safely in Amish Country.

That’s all well and good. But, I think these things ultimately don’t matter all that much in cases where you’ve got drivers making these kinds of bad decisions.