Westport man had kids in the car during October DUI crash on I-95, state police say

— A town man was arrested Thursday in connection with an October crash in which police say he struck a concrete barrier while driving under the influence of drugs with his children in the car.

Alexander Gomez, 33, of Westport had passed out behind the wheel, his 7-year-old daughter told a state trooper after the crash on Interstate 95 in Westport late on Oct. 26, 2023, state police said. The girl and her baby brother were not seriously injured.

Norwalk police picked up Gomez Thursday morning and notified Connecticut State Police that they had him in custody. He was taken to the Troop G barracks in Bridgeport to be processed.

Gomez was arrested on a warrant charging him with two counts of risk of injury to a child, second-degree reckless endangerment, operating under the influence of alcohol or drugs, failure to drive in the proper lane and violations of child restraint laws.

His bail was set at $150,000. According to the warrant, state police were aware of his erratic driving even before the crash. A trooper was dispatched to I-95 north about 11:50 p.m. that night on a report of a gray Infiniti sedan south of Exit 18 that was “swerving all over the road, using all lanes, along with both the left and right shoulders of the highway,” it states.

Other drivers had to slow significantly to avoid a collision, the warrant says.

From the dispatch center, one trooper watched on traffic cameras as the northbound car struck traffic barrels in a construction zone and then hit a center concrete barrier, the warrant says.

Another trooper saw the crash from a highway overpass, it says. The car came to a stop just north of Exit 18.

When the second trooper arrived at the crash scene, he removed a 7-year-old girl, whose seatbelt had been fastened, from the front passenger seat and brought her to his patrol car. She told him her baby brother was still in the car, and that her father passed out behind the wheel, the warrant says.

The trooper returned to the car and found an unsecured, upside-down car seat with a baby strapped in, according to the warrant. He removed the infant and placed him into the hands of a passerby who stopped to help.

Both children were distraught but did not appear to be injured, the warrant says.

The driver was limp and unconscious, with blue lips and pale, clammy skin, according to police. He appeared to be in respiratory arrest, so the trooper did rescue breaths, he wrote in the warrant.

Westport fire personnel administered naloxone, and the man, later identified as Gomez, regained consciousness.

When questioned at Norwalk Hospital, Gomez told police he didn’t know what caused him to lose consciousness. He said he had taken his regularly prescribed medication that he had been taking for five years.

The section of the warrant detailing the result of a blood test is blacked out, but the trooper wrote that Gomez’s return to normal breathing indicated an opiate effect had been reversed.

Naloxone has no effect on other medical conditions, the trooper wrote in the warrant.