Everglades ATV crash kills 19-year-old. Driver charged with DUI

Nearly two months after an ATV crash killed a 19-year-old passenger, the driver turned himself in on Wednesday after he was found to be drunk when the vehicle launched off a levee in Everglades National Park.

On January 31, shortly before 2 a.m., Robert Carlos Antelo, 19, was driving a 2014 Honda Trix 450 ATV with Sophia Veronica Nieto at Southwest 136th Street and 208th Avenue when he “failed to observe a South Florida Water Management Department (SFWMD) levee,” causing the ATV to go airborne, according to his arrest affidavit.

Antelo lost control, and they slid several feet along a dirt roadway before they struck a closed metal gate, investigators say.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue took Nieto to Ryder Trauma Center, where she died about an hour after the crash .The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s office ruled that Nieto died of blunt-force injuries.

A deputy noticed a “strong odor of alcohol” coming from Antelo’s mouth and a DUI investigation was immediately launched, police say.

Antelo’s blood was drawn at the scene before he was taken to Ryder Trauma Center with minor injuries. Warrants for two more blood tests were issued, and Antelo’s blood was again drawn.

On Feb. 20, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine released his toxicology report, which showed his blood alcohol level at 0.135 and 0.136. The legal limit for driving is 0.08.

Deputies say Antelo told them that he did not drink.

On Wednesday evening, Antelo turned himself in at the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office headquarters in Doral and was charged with DUI manslaughter.

On Thursday, a judge set his bond at $25,000 and gave him a no driving order. He is being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.