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A volunteer firefighter was convicted Monday of impaired driving causing bodily harm in an October 2012 collision that left a cyclist alone in critical condition at the side of the road.

But Trevor Clarke, 37, whose blood-alcohol level at the time was almost four times the legal limit, was spared a second criminal conviction of leaving the scene of an accident because he was too drunk too know he had hit anyone, Justice David Paciocco ruled.

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“I must, however, find Mr. Clarke not guilty of the failing to stop offence,” the judge said. “I am left in a reasonable doubt about whether Mr. Clarke knew or was wilfully blind to having collided with a person, precisely because he was so drunk.

He cannot, therefore, be convicted of this offence, but he can be punished for getting himself to that point of intoxication and thereby harming (the cyclist).”

Jennifer Leonard, a 45-year-old nurse, suffered a traumatic brain injury and has no memory of the afternoon crash on McGee Side Road near Carp. Clarke, at the wheel of a big Ford pickup truck, side-swiped the cyclist from behind. She was hit so hard by the passenger-side mirror that it snapped off. Leonard testified at trial that she still struggles with physical and emotional problems.