Members Of Ralph Stanley’s Band Rear-Ended By Drunk Driver In N.C.

BY CLAIRE GALOFARO
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

Two members of bluegrass legend Dr. Ralph Stanley’s band, The Clinch Mountain Boys, were injured in a serious car accident in North Carolina early Monday.

Fiddler Dewey Brown was driving his wife, Leslie, who is pregnant, and Ralph Stanley’s 16-year-old grandson, Nathan, who plays the mandolin, to the Browns’ Snow Camp, N.C., home. About 12:30 a.m. Monday, a speeding, drunk driver plowed into the back of their SUV, sending them skidding down a three-story embankment into a creek. The other driver fled the scene.

After the impact, Leslie Brown’s brand-new Nissan Murano slammed into a boulder at the creek bed, coming to rest in 4 feet of water off East Maple Avenue in Burlington, N.C., just 10 miles from home.

“It was so rough and violent, and then everything just stopped,” Dewey Brown said. “It went silent. Smoke started coming like a stain inside.”

Dewey Brown suffered only minor injuries, but both of his passengers were airlifted to Duke University Hospital where they underwent emergency surgery. They were still hospitalized Tuesday evening, but are recovering, a hospital spokesperson said.

Leslie Brown, who went to high school in Abingdon, has a broken femur and painful shoulder injuries. Both of Nathan Stanley’s legs are broken. All three were cut up and bruised. Meanwhile, an off-duty Alamance County, N.C., deputy, unaware of the crash, noticed a 1994 Chevrolet Camaro with severe damage in the front. In his personal car, the deputy tracked the driver, Alejandro Perez Sosa, 25, to his home at 105 Leslie Drive in Graham, N.C.

Perez was arrested on charges of felony hit and run, speeding, reckless driving and driving under the influence, according to a news statement issued by the Burlington (N.C.) Police Department. Police said Perez had a blood alcohol content of 0.14 when he was arrested. He is being held at the Alamance County Jail under a $9,000 bond.

Police estimated that the Camaro was traveling at 80 mph at the time of the crash.

The Clinch Mountain Boys played a festival in Bean Blosson, Ind., over the weekend. Stanley was accompanying the Browns to their North Carolina home to spend the week recording an album. They stopped in Abingdon for a cook-out at Leslie Brown’s grandparents’ home just hours before the crash.

The Browns are worried about their first baby.

“We haven’t heard any bad news, but they keep telling up all kinds of things that could go wrong,” Dewey Brown said. “It’s a miracle we didn’t end up upside down and trapped and drowning. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

He only returned to the scene to retrieve his fiddle from the broken-down SUV.

Nathan Stanley was recovering in the children’s intensive care unit.

“He’s been around to a lot of places, he’s way beyond his years,” Brown said. “But he is just 16. That’s young for this.”

Ralph Stanley was on his way to the hospital to visit his grandson Tuesday evening.

“Oh, gosh, I didn’t sleep all night,” said Leslie Brown’s grandmother, Anna Lee Vandyke, of Abingdon, Va., who rushed four hours to the hospital Monday morning. “I’m just thankful they weren’t killed. We’re just so lucky.”

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