Man sentenced in DUI that killed Fresno man once hailed as hero for saving newborn
A 24-year-old Fresno man was sentenced Thursday in superior court for a 2021 DUI crash that killed one person and injured two others.
Israel Douglas received six years and eight months in prison for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and DUI causing great bodily injury, according to a statement from the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office.
He pleaded no contest to the charges in February.
Douglas had been driving at more than 70 mph when he broadsided a car leaving the parking lot of the Amazon Warehouse at Cedar and Florence avenues.
Police at the time determined his blood alcohol count was .09 nearly an hour after the crash.
Two passengers inside his car were seriously injured — a broken leg, fractured ribs and a fractured spine.
The driver of the other car, Aurelio Fuentes, was taken to Community Regional Medical Center, where he died the following week.
Fuentes, 23, was a contract employee with Amazon who had just finished a shift when he was struck.
Fuentes himself had been in the news in 2019 after discovering and rescuing a newborn girl abandoned in the middle of the roadway in Madera Ranchos. Fuentes was delivering copies of The Fresno Bee at the time.
This story was originally published May 26, 2023 at 8:15 AM.