CICERO — A fiery vehicle crash in Cicero last month that left one female passenger dead and another severely injured started out as a wild night of drinking and cruising.
It ended with the driver finally being charged on Friday with reckless homicide, aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol involving death and aggravated DUI with great bodily harm.
Ismael Garcia, 33, of Chicago has been in intensive hospital care since the accident and charges were delayed pending his recovery from his injuries, Cicero Town spokesman Ray Hanania said. Garcia had a blood-alcohol content level of 0.255 at the time of the Jan. 23 crash.
Police had received multiple 911 calls about 5:35 a.m. and made immediate rescue attempts for the three people trapped in the twisted wreckage of the vehicle, which had struck an industrial building at a high rate of speed in the 1200 block of Laramie Avenue.
A front seat passenger, Bianca Christakis-Prieto of Chicago, was dead at the scene and both Garcia and another female passenger, Nicole Lebron of Chicago, were unconscious. Both were taken to Loyola University Medical Center in critical condition, Hanania said.
According to the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, Christakis-Prieto had posted on her Facebook page earlier that evening, "cruisin' downtown drinking this Henny bottle," referring to Hennessy cognac. An empty tequila bottle and a nearly empty bottle of Jagermeister liqueur were found in the wrecked vehicle.
The area was blocked off for several hours, and a woman gave birth to a child in the back seat of a car that was stopped nearby as her fiance had flagged down emergency personnel who were responding to the fire for help.
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