A Litchfield woman who crashed her minivan into trees in Wales last week, injuring her 4-year-old son, faces her fourth drunken-driving charge in a decade, Maine State Police said Monday.

Kristy Cookson, 33, was driving on Route 132 Wednesday afternoon near the Sabattus town line when she lost control and the van left the road and crashed into a clump of trees, state police said. Rescue workers had to use a chain saw to get the mother and son out of the wreckage.

The boy was treated and released from St. Mary’s Hospital in Lewiston. Cookson was taken to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston for treatment of a serious ankle injury. Because of a mixup, she was discharged from the hospital without police being notified, state police said. She was found Monday at an apartment in Auburn.

Trooper Ricci Cote said drugs and alcohol were involved in the Wales crash, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. Cote charged Cookson with driving with a suspended license and aggravated operating under the influence. The OUI charge was her fourth in a decade, and was aggravated because her son was in the car, McCausland said.

Cookson’s license has been suspended 13 times, he said.

Cookson is on probation from a 2009 incident in which she was shot in the neck by a Lewiston police officer after a chase through that city. After crashing her pickup into a parked vehicle, Cookson tried to run one of the officers over, police said. The Maine Attorney General’s Office determined the officer was justified in using deadly force.

 

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