A driver slipped into a “daydream state” moments before ploughing into an oncoming car with a woman and two children inside.
Andrew Hodge was seen muttering incoherently to himself as he blacked out behind the wheel, while speeding through Alyth.
The 59-year-old former farm worker careered down Airlie Street and swerved on to the wrong side of the road into the path of a Vauxhall Zafira.
The female driver was rushed to hospital, along with her two young passengers.
Hodge, who suffered a broken sternum in the crash, went on trial at Perth Sheriff Court on Tuesday, accused of dangerous driving on October 13 2019.
His solicitor lodged a special defence of automatism, claiming his client had fallen ill before the accident.
The court heard a Fentanyl patch Hodge wears daily had fallen off, causing him to “black out”.
Sheriff Donald Ferguson found Hodge guilty of driving dangerously, but said there were “exceptional circumstances” that meant Hodge could keep his licence.
Talking ‘rubbish’
Witness Vassilis Aronis told the court he was a passenger in his friend Hodge’s Mitsubishi Eclipse.
“I went with him to the car boot sale in Errol that day,” the 23-year-old said.
“We drove back to Alyth in the afternoon.”
Asked by fiscal depute Andrew Harding how Hodge was acting as he drove through rural Perthshire, Mr Aronis said: “Not too good.”
He said: “He just wasn’t all there.
“He blacked out, like he was in a bit of a daydream state.
“His eyes were open but he was kind of unconscious.”
Mr Aronis said his friend was talking incoherently. “I didn’t know what he was saying, it was just rubbish.”
Hodge was driving “all over the place,” he said. “He was a wee bit in the ditch and then a wee bit over the other side of the road.
“I was telling him: Pull over. Stop driving.
“But he never listened to me, he just kept on going.”
The court heard Hodge’s vehicle struck the oncoming car head-on.
Both drivers were trapped inside their vehicles and had to be cut free by firefighters.
The children, who appeared unharmed, were taken in by a local couple before they were transferred to hospital.
Both vehicles were “extensively” damaged, the court heard.
Accused ‘could not help’ falling ill
The court heard that Hodge, from Cardenden, wore a Fentanyl patch to block pain caused by pancreatitis.
Paramedics noticed he was not wearing a patch when they tore off his clothes for treatment at the scene.
The court heard that he could experience withdrawal symptoms that would gradually worsen if he went 12 hours or more without his patch.
Solicitor Calum Harris, defending, told the court: “This was an external factor that could not have been foreseen.
“It led to a complete alienation of reason.”
He added: “When those symptoms manifested, he was not lying on a couch where he could not harm anyone, he was behind the wheel of car and he could not help that.”
Sheriff Ferguson said he found Hodge guilty of dangerous driving and told him: “This was an external factor that made you become unwell.
“But you should have immediately brought the vehicle to a halt as soon as you began experiencing symptoms.”
He added: “This is an unusual case and given the exceptional circumstances I will not proceed with disqualification.”
Hodge, of Denfield Avenue, was fined £200 and had five points added to his licence.
