Phoenix, AZ : A former U.S. Marine who lost part of his leg when his motorcycle slammed into a train on April, friday 28th 2017

A former U.S. Marine who lost part of his leg when his motorcycle slammed into a train in what police believe was a drug related collision that also fatally injured his girlfriend, pleaded not guilty in court last week to felony charges.

Nearly a year after crashing his motorcycle into the Metrolink train at a rail crossing on Las Posas Road, killing 23- year- old Nadya Unger, 27- year- old Garrett Scott Vongunten of Camarillo appeared April 19 in Ventura County Superior Court to answer to one felony count each of vehicular manslaughter and gross negligence causing great bodily harm, as well as to driving with an invalid license.

A California Highway Patrol traffic collision report said Vongunten was under the influence of cocaine and marijuana at the time of the crash.

Vongunten denied the allegations and was ordered to return to court May 11 for a pre-trial conference.His attorney, Douglas Ridley, said his client has suffered physically and emotionally from crash.

“He would do anything to bring her back,” Ridley said of the young woman killed in the crash. “Unfortunately, there’s no way for him to do that.”

Vongunten is charged in the April 21, 2016 crash that killed Unger, a Camarillo resident, and left the former Marine Corps corporal and rifleman critically injured. He was taken to Ventura County Medical Center, where CHP officers arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Vongunten was in a coma for a month, which delayed the investigation, Officer Ronaldo Tejeda of the CHP’s Ventura County office told the Camarillo Acorn in January.After his release from the hospital, Vongunten was free while the CHP investigated the crash. He moved to his mother’s house in Sun Valley and later moved again, Vongunten told the Acorn in January.

The delay in filing charges in the case had frustrated Unger’s grieving family.

“I’m angry,” Arizona resident Walter Unger, Nadya’s father, told the Acorn in January. “He was under the influence; he let Nadya on the bike and he killed her. Nothing else matters.”

On the day of the crash, Vongunten picked up Unger at the pet grooming store Unger opened two years ago in Camarillo, according to the CHP’s collision report.

The couple, who were dating regularly, were traveling south on Las Posas on Vongunten’s Harley-Davidson, approaching the rail crossing at First Street, where the motorcycle slammed into the side of a Metrolink train around 6 p.m.

In an interview in January, Vongunten said he didn’t remember the crash.

“Of course it wasn’t intentional,” he said. “I didn’t see a train and say, ‘That looks like a good idea.’”

He said he fractured his left arm, left femur and pelvis in the collision and had to have the lower part of his leg amputated.

Source :
Charges brought in deadly accident