Driver Testifies in I-15 Death of Samaritan : Trial: A woman who was driving drunk is charged in the death of a man who stopped to help her. The driver who actually hit him says he never saw headlights.

Dana Lowry sat through six hours of testimony Thursday from the Ramona driver who actually ran into the good Samaritan for whose death she is being held responsible.

Henry Preiss, a 39-year-old wine and spirits importer, testified that although he saw a commotion on the side of the freeway, he did not slow down. While other motorists saw the headlights of Lowry’s car from a mile away, Preiss testified that he never did. He also said he saw the flashing lights of a tow truck, although in previous statements he had said he saw no such lights.

But it is not Preiss who faces charges in the death of Thomas Anderlik, even though it was his car that plowed into the man and killed him.

Lowry, a 25-year-old Fallbrook woman, is being tried for vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, on the grounds that had she not been driving drunk, she would not have ended up needing Anderlik’s help, and he would not have been standing in the road where he was killed.

Lowry had been driving drunk about midnight on Aug. 15 when she drove onto Interstate 15 near Fallbrook in the wrong direction, sideswiping a truck coming down an off-ramp.

She continued to drive on the freeway against traffic after striking the truck, coming to rest in the No. 2 lane of the freeway, her headlights shining in the direction of oncoming traffic.

Lowry, who was dressed in white clothing, then got out of her car and began to wave her arms. Nineteen-year-old Anderlik, a resident of Washington state who was visiting an aunt in Oceanside, stopped his car on the side of the freeway and went to help Lowry, but was killed when Preiss’ oncoming car plowed into him, pinning him against Lowry’s car.

Preiss testified in Vista Superior Court on Thursday that as he drove south on I-15 he was distracted by the lights of a tow truck on the right side of the road and did not see Lowry’s car, whose headlights were on and shining in his direction.

“There was thought in my mind that there must be something going wrong here,” Preiss testified.

However, Preiss did not slow down and continued to drive his car on cruise control at 67 m.p.h. Preiss also testified that he saw a car parked on the shoulder of the road, which turned out to belong to Anderlik.

“The very first thing I saw was another person who appeared to be a woman. In the same instantaneous second, I saw a car,” Preiss said. “My instantaneous reaction was horror and I shoved my foot on the brakes.”

Lowry’s attorney, Thomas Warwick, hounded Preiss under cross-examination on what he did not see.

Under repeated questioning in the courtroom of Judge Raymond Zvetina, Preiss remained firm that he never saw Lowry’s headlights, even though previous witnesses had testified that they saw them from as far as a mile away.

Prosecution witnesses pointed out that the position of Anderlik’s body showed that he had been standing in front of one of Lowry’s headlights at the time of the accident and that the other headlight had been damaged in the car’s accident with the truck, although it was still giving off a fuzzy light.

Previous witnesses also testified that Anderlik’s car did have its hazard lights on, although Preiss said he did not see them.

Also under cross-examination, Preiss said several cars had passed him on the freeway 3 miles before the accident, but that he never saw their brake lights as he approached the scene.

Preiss also said he never saw a second car that had pulled over to the side of the road near Lowry’s car before the accident.

“I don’t expect someone to be in the wrong direction, parked on the freeway right ahead of me. . . . I would only assume that they were on the other side of the freeway,” Preiss said.

Preiss testified that he had been focused on a tow truck, whose emergency lights had been flashing and was backing down onto the freeway from an off-ramp to aid Lowry’s car.

“When my focus came off the commotion and focused back where it should be . . . when it diverted back in front of me, the car was there,” Preiss said.

But the defense pointed to a statement Preiss made in February to a district attorney investigator, in which Price said he never saw lights on the truck.