Vanessa Carrillo this week walked slowly across a room at Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Santa Fe, where she was handed an oversized check for $30,000 to help with her college education.

The generous total — raised in the wake of publicity over Carrillo's love of the soft drink Dr Pepper — pales in comparison to the medical expenses already incurred by the former emergency medical technician.

She was severely injured and confined to a wheelchair for months after a wrong-way drunken driver on Dec. 14 slammed into the ambulance that the La Cienega woman was driving on Interstate 25 south of Santa Fe.

In a lawsuit filed last week in state District Court, Carrillo's attorney, Jeffrey S. Trespel of Albuquerque, alleges, among other complaints, that:

• The two women in the car that hit the ambulance — driver Kylene Holmes and passenger Jennifer Belvin — had "consumed alcohol and marijuana in copious amounts on numerous occasions and in a variety of locations" the night before and early the morning of the crash that police say was caused by Holmes driving roughly 100 miles an hour south in the northbound lane of the interstate highway.
• The ambulance company Carrillo worked for, Rocky Mountain EMS, was negligent in its upkeep of airbags in the ambulance she drove. Airbags did not deploy in the head-on collision.
• The insurance that Rocky Mountain EMS had for its drivers was either insufficient or the companies overseeing the coverage are now shortchanging her on medical coverage due to improper interpretations of the coverage or are improperly denying payment.
• The wrong-way crash caused by Holmes left Carrillo with "severe, debilitating and permanent bodily injuries" and an "initial round" of medical expenses that has exceeded $250,000 "and is ongoing."

"She's recovering," Trespel told The New Mexican. "And she's got the heart of a lion, but this is an uphill battle for her and she has a long way to go. There is no reason she should be worrying about paying any of her medical expenses as none of this was this girl's fault."

Carrillo at the time of the crash was working as a licensed EMT as part of her effort to get into medical school at The University of New Mexico. She also was a ballerina. Her injuries may never allow her to dance again and, according to the lawsuit, have caused life-altering injuries both physically and psychologically.

Trespel acknowledges that while there was some insurance for Rocky Mountain EMS employees, the lawsuit questions whether it was the proper insurance and whether Arch Insurance Co., McNeil & Company, Inc., Montgomery Agency, Gallagher Basset, Inc., and Elizabeth Loberfido are all properly handling claims related to Carrillo's injuries.

On the day of the crash, The New Mexican called Rocky Mountain EMS owner Ed Little and asked whether the insurance for his employees, primarily his ambulance drivers, was sufficient to cover such a crash. Little declined to respond and said, "I'm not going to comment on that" and "Who would even ask that question? That's a horrible question."

His attorney, Michael Cadigan of Albuquerque, told The New Mexican on Dec. 17 any suggestion that there wasn't proper insurance or that the ambulance was in unsafe condition was false. "The ambulance involved in this accident was properly maintained and passed all required inspections," Cadigan said.

The lawsuit states some of "the insurance defendants" may not have always been forthcoming with Rocky Mountain EMS about the insurance.

"These Defendants used ambiguity and failed to state material facts, which tended to deceive Rocky Mountain EMS, and by extension (Carrillo)," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit seeks payment for all medical expenses, all legal fees and unspecified punitive damages for Carrillo's "injuries and damages (that) are ongoing, permanent and are expected to continue in the future."

No attorneys had filed responses to the lawsuit as of Thursday.

Contact Geoff Grammer at 986-3076 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at SantaFeCrime.com.">SantaFeCrime.com.