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If not for his dedication to sobriety, Jessie Fortner would be going to jail for a drunk driving crash in Martensville with “frightening” details, a Saskatoon provincial court judge ruled.

Judge Robert Jackson said it was “truly miraculous” that nobody was seriously hurt when Fortner plowed his truck into a light pole and a parked truck on a residential street — narrowly missing two nine-year-old boys walking along the sidewalk.

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Fortner, 32, had picked up his four-year-old son from daycare around 5 p.m. on April 2, Crown prosecutor Paul Goldstein said in presenting the facts of the case on Wednesday. Fortner later told police that he drank a 26-ounce bottle of rye during the day.

He swerved down the road, leaving tire marks from sidewalk to sidewalk, before hitting the light pole and parked truck. One of the two boys on the sidewalk was hit in the leg with an object from the collision, injuring his ankle.