A driver with more than double the legal blood-alcohol limit got into a motor vehicle accident with an e-scooter rider on the Post Road, then drove off, leaving the man lying on the pavement with serious injuries, Darien police said.
The rider went in and out of consciousness, according to a police officer who had heard the crash and went to the scene to find out what had happened, police said. The rider was taken to a hospital.
Police gave this additional account, including accusations not proven in court:
At 10:36 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 16, when the police officer arrived at the scene, somewhere east of the intersection of the Post Road and Garden City Road in Noroton, the scooter and debris from the accident were on the roadway.
Before arriving at the scene, the officer saw a vehicle with a defective passenger headlight traveling west on the Post Road.
Firefighters who assisted police with traffic at the scene told police that they saw a vehicle that matched the description of the car in the accident. The firefighters said that the vehicle was missing a passenger-side mirror, had a defective headlight and the windshield was broken. They said it was heading east on the Post Road. Police stopped the vehicle on Old Kings Highway South.
The driver, Wiley Schmidt, 22, of Pratt Island Road, told police that he had just dropped off a friend on Noroton Avenue, and he named the friend. Police called the friend ,who said he was at college and wasn’t with Schmidt.
The friend also told police that Schmidt had called him, and the driver said he thought he had just hit something.
While speaking with Schmidt, an officer immediately smelled the odor of alcoholic beverage coming from him and noticed that Schmidt’s eyes were bloodshot and glassy. The driver was given field sobriety tests, which he didn’t perform to standard. He was charged with driving while under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident.
At Darien Police Headquarters, Schmidt took breathalyzer tests which showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.2066 at 11:30 p.m. and 0.2097 at 11:49 p.m. — both twice above the legal limit of 0.08.
Schidt was released on $500 bond and is scheduled to appear Thursday in state Superior Court in Stamford.