ATLANTA — An ambulance driver was sentenced to prison after he pled guilty in court for his involvement in a deadly rollover crash that killed a dialysis patient in 2021.
Kevin McCorvey, 36, learned his sentence on Tuesday in front of a Fulton County judge.
The former medic accepted a plea deal where he pled guilty to three charges including vehicular homicide, reckless driving and reckless conduct. He accepted a plea agreement to serve eight years for the vehicular homicide charge and 1 year for the other two charges.
In May 2022, McCorvey was previously indicted on 10 charges related to the incident-- including two counts of first-degree vehicular homicide, involuntary manslaughter, driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and reckless driving.
On the night of Nov. 12, 2021, McCorvey was driving the Prime Care EMS ambulance when he failed to maintain his lane and drove off the west shoulder of West Campbellton Street at Golightly Street in Fairburn.
66-year-old Wilton Thomason, a dialysis patient, died on impact when the ambulance overturned into a ditch. Wilton was being transported following a dialysis appointment. Medics who responded to the scene shortly after the crash found that the patient was not strapped in properly, bodycam footage revealed.
McCorvey was arrested at the scene of the crash. He was previously accused of having both alcohol and cocaine in his system at the time of the crash.
Wilton's children Terrence and Traci Thomason did not appear in the courtroom on Tuesday but had someone read a statement on their behalf.
"I'm left grasping onto memories of what once was. I want you to know who my father was. He was a man who was loved, cherished and honored," Traci wrote in the statement.
Terrence, who has been a paramedic for more than 10 years, said he couldn't understand what went wrong.
"You have to be on point. You have to be ready. You have to be knowledgeable and you have to care," Terrence told 11Alive during an interview in 2021.
In the previously released bodycam footage, the medic only blew a blood alcohol under the legal limit. McCorvey wasn't accused of being over the legal limit, but still being impaired.
All other charges were dismissed in the medic's case.
The medic will have until Oct. 24 to surrender himself to the Fulton County Sheriff's Office to serve his sentence, according to a judge.