SEBASTIAN — An Indian River County teacher was arrested, accused of driving under the influence over the weekend after crashing into a van with five occupants. A large half-full cold bottle of vodka was found in one of two handbags in the teacher’s car, authorities said.
The van’s occupants were taken to Sebastian River Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.
The teacher, identified as 30-year-old Keri Bea Gielow, of S. Mirror Lake Drive in Sebastian, faces charges of driving under the influence, leaving the scene of an accident involving damage, and leaving the scene of an accident with injuries, according to the arrest report. A deputy on scene wrote in a report that the smell of alcohol was “emitting from her facial area.”
She has been released from the county jail on $16,000 bond. According to the report, Gielow refused to perform both field sobriety exercises and a breath test.
Gielow repeatedly asked for a lawyer while on scene and told an investigator that she was not driving, that there was someone else in the car. When pressed for a name, Gielow said that she had just met the person that day and did not know the person’s name.
A witness to the crash told investigators that Gielow had passed him in a turning lane and that the woman was the only one in the vehicle.
The witness also said that he had told the passenger in his own vehicle that something was going to happen just before Gielow’s vehicle struck the van at 66th Avenue and County Road 510 and continued east.
