NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – The 25-year-old man arrested for plowing into a crowd on the Endymion parade route this weekend was still in custody on a $125,000 bond as of Monday afternoon.
Nathan Rizzuto was booked on two counts of first-degree negligent vehicular injuring, hit-and-run driving causing serious injury and reckless operation of a motor vehicle.
His blood-alcohol level was .232 percent, almost three times the legal limit.
At a press conference from the scene of the Carnival tragedy, NOPD Chief Michael Harrison said 21 people were taken to University Medical Center and nine other hospitals. Seven others declined medical attention.
The ages of the victims ranged from 1 year old to victims in their 50s. Three were hospitalized overnight with moderate to serious injuries.
Witness Juwanda Williams, who was just feet away from the accident, said she heard more than she saw.
“First I heard a car, hit into … almost like an explosion,” she recalls. “It came very quickly, then it hit into another car, and to the truck I was standing next to, I was about three feet from it.”
Williams’ daughter saw the crash and watched a female NOPD officer get struck by a vehicle and hit the ground.