WV Paramedic Turns Himself In for Allowing Child to Drive

A St. Albans man turned himself in to police and now faces charges of child neglect after he let his 10-year-old daughter drive his car.

Brian Zane Patton, 33, is a Mason County paramedic.

On Sept. 30, he let his daughter drive on Warrior Way in Quincy, and the girl ran off the road and slid over an embankment about 150 yards, according to a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County.

The accident resulted in her spending a night in the hospital. Patton's two other children, both younger than the 10-year-old, were in the back seat at the time. None had seat belts on.

Patton turned himself in Monday to the Kanawha County Sheriff's Department on three charges of child neglect.

The girl who was driving was knocked unconscious in the accident, said Shawn Hudnall, the girl's mother and Patton's ex-wife.

"She spent the night in the hospital. It shook her up real bad," Hudnall said. "The last thing she remembers is going over the edge and the next was waking up in the ambulance."

Hudnall said she learned that her daughter had been driving at the hospital.

She says her daughter got scared and hit the gas when she meant to hit the brake.

"I just want her to know she is not to blame. She thinks she is to blame for all of it," Hudnall said.

Morgan Patton, the mother of the two other children in the car, said she hasn't spoke to her ex-husband about the incident.