A Manitoba man who killed a young mother of two while drunk and driving the wrong direction on the highway has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.

David Delisle, 51, previously pleaded guilty to one count each of impaired driving causing death and impaired driving causing bodily harm for a Sept. 9, 2012 collision that claimed the life of 21-year-old Samantha Schlichting and permanently injured her male passenger.

Court heard Delisle, a father of two, had been drinking at a friend's house and was driving home around 4 a.m. when he turned into the wrong lane of traffic on the Perimeter Highway between St. Anne's Road and Lagimodiere Boulevard. Delisle drove half a kilometre east on the double lane road when he crossed lanes and collided head-on with Schlichting's westbound vehicle.

The night of the collision marked Delisle's first social outing since losing his wife to cancer two years earlier, court was told.

"The irony of course is that by his criminal act, he has now sentenced another father to that same fate of raising two children on his own without his life partner," Judge Wanda Garreck said.

Delisle was unable to reach his lawyer following his arrest and refused to comply with a police demand he supply a breath or blood sample for analysis.

"I'm not satisfied his refusal was a deliberate attempt to avoid detection, but rather may have been a product of shock ... or lack of legal advice," Garreck said.

Delisle's lawyer argued he was in a depressed state at the time of the collision and could not properly focus on driving.

All the more reason not to get behind the wheel in the first place, Garreck said.

"In that condition he chose to drink and he chose to drive after," Garreck said. "He would have known the risk he assumed when he set out that night and he took that risk, so his level of culpability is high."

Delisle quit drinking after the collision and has shown genuine remorse, Garreck said.

"Mr. Delisle is like many others involved in these types of offences — a productive and contributing member of society who changed the course of his life and the lives of others in one single night with one single decision," Garreck said.

dean.pritchard@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @deanatwpgsun