Caused Traffic Accident While Drunk : Nurse Sentenced to Treat Boy, 4, He Paralyzed

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A 36-year-old nurse sentenced to prison on a vehicular assault conviction has been ordered to help in the therapy for a 4-year-old boy left paralyzed by the accident.

“I would prefer not to have to do that, but if that’s part of the sentence, I’ll do it,” said Percy Mayes Jr., contacted in Canon City where he is in state prison.

Court records show that Mays, a licensed practical nurse, was drunk when he was driving a car which collided with a motorcycle near Grand Junction on June 16, 1984.

Barry Kelleher, a passenger on the motorcycle with his father and 5-year-old brother, was left paralyzed from the neck down.

Barry’s parents, Tom and Karen Kelleher, asked that Mayes participate in the therapy, said Mesa County Judge William Ela on Tuesday.

“If he has any kind of conscience at all, it will do him good to see what he did,” Tom Kelleher said .

“We’ll have to live with Barry the way he is. . . . It will be a worse sentence (than prison) to spend time with Barry and think possibly it could be his own child.”

Mayes was sentenced to prison earlier and has spent the past five months in the penitentiary at Canon City.

He will return to Grand Junction, where he will spend six months in a work-release program. He will work with Barry during that time.

Mayes’ service to the child will come at Hilltop Rehabilitation Hospital, where Barry is hooked up to a respirator.

Kelleher said he has no reservations about Mayes working with his son. “Barry will do a better job of making that man feel bad than anyone else in the world could do,” he said.