The crash that left four Neshaminy High School student seriously injured happened in an instant.
But, the hoursleading up to the life-changing accident was a slow, but culminatingseries of events that authorities said could have predicted the tragedy that unfoldedon a dark Northampton road on March 27.
Prosecutors say its those decision that warrant the most serious charge against Shane Brolly, the 24-year-old Philadelphia man they allege repeatedly got behind the wheel drunk in the hours before the crash.
Bucks County Assistant District AttorneyRobert James admittednot all crash cases rise to the level of malice required for afirst-degree charge of attempted aggravated assault causingserious bodily injury with extreme indifference.
“This one does,” he said in court Thursday as he laid out the case against Shane Brolly during a more than two-hour preliminary hearing.
Despite objections from Brolly'sdefense attorney, the charge and others, including three morefelonies, wereheld for trial. If convicted on the first-degree charge, Brolly could face up to 20 years in prison for each of the five counts against him.
In his argument to keepthe most serious charge, James recounted witness testimony, which offered new details about the hours before Brolly, an Irish citizen in the U.S. on an expired work visa, illegally passed a northbound car on Bridgetown Pike and smashed head-on into a southbound car.
The prosecutor then motioned at the four girls seated behind him in the audience of the Northampton Township district courtroom.Two still inwheelchairs.
“These young ladies are very, very lucky to be here today,” James said.
No Memory
On the witness stand Eoin Quinn responded to questions about what he and Brolly were doing during the six hours before the accident.
Brolly, who Quinn has known about a year, called to ask if he felt like hitting some golf balls. He evenoffered to drive since he had his cousin’s 2013 GMC red pickup truck.
Brolly picked him up at his Glenside home around 4 p.m., he said. They stopped and picked up a case of White Claw, a hard seltzer, and a case of Natural Light beer.
At the driving range the men split a bucket of about 120 balls as they each drank two cans from the cases they bought, Quinn said.
After an hour, they decided to get something to eat. Brolly drove them to a bar somewhere in Philadelphia. Instead of eating dinner, they each drank one beer before leaving.
Their next stop was the northeast Philadelphia, where they picked up afriend. The three men then drove to an Irish sports bar about 10 minutes away.
On the way, Brolly clipped a parked vehicle and didn't stop, Quinn said.
Did he think Brolly was drunk at the time?
“I guess so,” Quinn replied.
The men arrived at the bar around 7:30 or 8 p.m. Best he could remember, the plan was to call an Uber at the end of the night.
“I thought we all sort of agreed,” Quinn said.
But Quinn testified that he doesn’t remember leaving the bar or what happened after.
He didn’t remember where they were going when the accident happened, adding that he was not familiar with the road or area.
Quinn also claimed he remembers nothing about the accident that left him with serious internal injuries requiring emergency surgery.
‘He was drunk’
Tiffany Zaborwsk remembers that night.
She and her husband were enjoying a night out at when they met Brolly and his friends at the Irish bar, and talked for about an hour.
Zaborwski testified at some point in the night she overheard a bartender refuse to serve Brolly another drink.
An argument ensued. Another bartender intervened and tried to calm down Brolly. Then a bouncer got involved.
While she had just met Brolly, his condition alarmed Zaborwski.
“You could tell he was drunk,” she said.
She told Brolly he shouldn’t drive, then followed him into the parking lot, again warning him not to drive.She pulled out her cellphone and offered to pay for an Uber for him and his friends.
When that didn’t work, she appealed to his friends.
“It’s not worth it. Please don’t drive.”
One of his friends told Zaborwski he would stop Brolly.
But the friend — Quinn — jumped into the backseat of the truck before it sped off.
More:Here's how to help 4 Neshaminy students recovering from Northampton crash
‘Really, really fast’
About 25 minutes, and eight miles away, 18-year-old Kateryna Sulima was driving her stepmom home in her Nissan Murano. She and her younger brother, who was in the car, were sleeping over.
Sulima was traveling north on Bridgetown Pike toward Langhorne.
Suddenly something caught her attention. A red pickup truck.
It was moving fast in the opposite lane of travel trying to pass her car.
“It all happened really, really fast,” Sulima said.
Instinctively, Sulima said she started steering her car to the right to make more room for the fast-approaching truck.
Then she caught a glimpse of a car traveling in the southbound lane where the pickup was.
Brolly’s pickup struck the white 2019 Mazda CX5, pushing it back 50-feet where it rolled over and landed on its side in the southbound shoulder ofBridgetown Pike. The engine caught fire.
The force of the head-on crash pushedthe pickup back into the northbound lane causing Sulima to strike its rear. Neither she or her passengers were injured.
At the hearing, accident reconstruction expert Steve Mawhinney, who reviewed the scene, testified that five seconds before impact the pickup truck accelerated from 57 to 70 mph. He also found no evidence Brolly applied his brakes.
The Mazda was traveling at 40 mph. The teen driver applied the brakes two seconds before the airbags deployed. The posted speed limit in that section of the road is 45 mph.
More exclusive content:Accident leaves 4 Neshaminy HS students injured: 'I thought they were all dead'
Mass casualty event
Northampton police officer Tim Friel testified that he was on patrol at when a radio call came in shortly after 10 p.m.for a multi-vehicle accident with entrapment and fire in the 300 block of Bridgetown Pike.
Friel was nearby so he responded directly to the scene.He found one car on the side of Bridgetown Pike. A pickup truck in the middle of the road. A white SUV on its side with the engine smoking. All three cars were heavily damaged.
Bystanders were using an extinguisher to put out the fire in the white SUV, and pulling passengers out of the sunroof.
A trained paramedic, Friel immediately called for a mass casualty set up.
Next, he and the bystanders removed front seat passenger, Taylor Donnelly. He could see she had “extreme deformity” of two limbs. She complained she could not feel the side of her body.
Backseat passenger, Julianna Mazzoni, was covered in blood and she had possible head trauma, he said. The other backseat passenger, Angelique Corsino, was conscious and able to follow commands.
The driver, Julia Aquilone, was trapped beneath the collapsed dashboard. She was screaming.
Friel testified Julia had “severe facial deformities.” Among her extensive injuries, the impact pushed the lower half of her face in, breaking her jaw. She would later undergo several surgeries, and had to have her jaw wired shut as part of her recovery.
Still, Julia had a tight grip on his hand, Friel said. Then, the grip went slack. She started fading in and out of consciousness.
Friel ordered a medical evacuation helicopter. Once fire-rescue workers freed her, Julia was moved into an ambulance and rushed to the landing site. Inside the helicopter a medical team was waiting.
After, Friel headed to St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown, where Brolly was taken. He was among the officers stationed in his hospital room.
The doctors put Brolly into a medically induced coma because of his injuries. But as the nurses suctioned his mouth secretions he could smell alcohol, Friel said.
Toxicology tests would show that Brolly, who is not licensed to drive in Pennsylvania, had a blood alcohol level of .21, more than twice the legal limit for driving in Pennsylvania.
Brolly remains incarcerated in Bucks County jail in lieu of 10% of $10 million bail.
More exclusive content:'Neshaminy 4' face a long road to recovery after Northampton crash
