Oregon drunken driver, blind victim ‘new friends’ after apologizing, making amends

Oregon crash defendant tries to make amends

PORTLAND, Ore. — No one disputes that Jack Alvord, driving drunk, struck a blind man on a sidewalk and then drove off. Still, even the prosecutor and the victim agree that Alvord has gone to great lengths to make amends.

Alvord pleaded guilty last month to drunken driving, third-degree assault and reckless driving in Multnomah County Circuit Court. He also pleaded no contest to hit-and-run driving.

On Thursday, Judge Michael McShane sentenced him to 22 months in prison.

Defense lawyer Jim O’Rourke told the court that Alvord booked himself into a 30-day residential treatment center. He pushed his insurance company to settle with his victim for $1.25 million. Once he is out of prison, he has agreed to sit beside the man he injured, Norman Larkin, and tell other drunken drivers what happened when he made the decision to drink and drive.

Larkin says he now considers Alvord “a new friend.” The 51-year-old Larkin suffered a broken pelvis and broken legs when Alvord’s car jumped onto the sidewalk Feb. 7 and pinned him against a utility pole.

Fourteen people saw the crash and some followed Alvord, 61, as he drove off. They boxed him in less than a mile away.

Alvord had a blood-alcohol level of 0.30 percent, approaching four times the legal intoxication threshold.

Larkin acknowledges he was angry and in a lot of pain for a few weeks but says he now believes Alvord is truly remorseful.

“It is my hope that other individuals who have addiction problems will be aware of what can happen to innocent people when they drink and drive,” Larkin said in a statement read in court by his lawyer.

Larkin, of Vancouver, has only recently been able to walk again.

In agreeing to the prison term, prosecutor Chuck Sparks said he considered both Alvord’s actions after the crash, and the person he had been in the years before.

Alvord, who lost his job as a vice president at a local bank after the crash, had volunteered thousands of hours for more than a dozen organizations, his lawyer said. That included delivering meals to the elderly, helping organize the Rose Festival’s Junior Parade and ferrying donated eyes from the hospital to the airport, often in the middle of the night.

O’Rourke said Alvord was suffering serious health problems before the crash, became depressed and drank secretly — not even his wife was aware he had a problem.

The defendant apologized again Thursday to Larkin, although only the accident victim’s lawyer was present in court.

“It was all my fault,” Alvord said.

Information from: The Oregonian, www.oregonlive.com