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WILLMAR, MINN. - A Willmar dentist was sentenced in the Kandiyohi County Court to 90 days in jail for allegedly running over a blind man at a crosswalk back in November, according to the Kandiyohi County Court.
Gary Mattson (pictured), 56, was sentenced June 23 in the Kandiyohi County Court to 90 days in jail, a $1,000 fine and a year probation on a misdemeanor charge of failure to stop for a blind person, according to Kandiyohi County Court.
Tom Sykora, 58, of Willmar, who is blind, was crossing a crosswalk in November when Mattson allegedly ran him Sykora.
Sykora suffered 22 broken ribs, a broken shoulder blade, a broken ankle and severe aches and pains.
"It's an odd situation," the victim, Tom Sykora said Wednesday. "He did a great deal of damage to me and a misdemeanor doesn't fix it."
According to Kandiyohi County court records, Mattson told authorities he didn't know if he ran over anyone or struck anything. Mattson's blood alcohol level was tested and results were negative.
As part of Mattson's sentence he was ordered to take a vision test, pay $540 in restitution and attend a victim impact panel, according to the Kandiyohi County Court.
On June 28, 2010, Mattson will begin serving his sentence.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From KSAX-TV:
