AUBURN — Steve Gregoire told a judge Friday that he spent his birthday two years ago at a crash scene in Lewiston, watching his 19-year-old daughter being extricated from her mangled car and listening to her screaming in pain from multiple critical injuries until she lost consciousness.

The crash caused a compound fracture to his daughter’s upper leg, fractured her lower leg, caused a compound fracture to her upper arm and shattered the bones in her lower arm.

It left her with nearly third-degree burns on her lower leg and a deep gash in her thigh.

She spent roughly a month in a hospital before a long recovery involving surgeries and painful physical therapy.

“Just thinking about it makes me cry,” Alesha Gregoire, 21, said Friday at the sentencing of the man who slammed his tow truck head-on into the Subaru she was driving on Lisbon Street in Lewiston about 5:30 p.m. on Aug, 16, 2019.

Dalton Farrington Androscoggin County Jail photo

The truck driven by Dalton Farrington, 29, of 483 Hotel Road, Auburn, had veered into Gregoire’s lane while he was high on the opioid fentanyl, Assistant District Attorney Molly Butler Bailey told the judge Friday.

Justice Thomas McKeon sentenced Farrington on Friday in Androscoggin County Superior Court to 10 years in prison, but suspended six years of that time. That means Farrington will spend four years in prison on the charge of aggravated assault. He will be on probation for three years after his release.

McKeon also imposed concurrent sentences of six months and 12 months, respectively, on charges of aggravated operating under the influence of drugs and reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon. Farrington was fined $2,100. He lost his license for six years.

Since his arrest, Farrington attended a drug rehabilitation program after a long period of drug addiction, defense attorney Donald Hornblower said. He said his client had taken responsibility for his actions by agreeing to plead guilty to avoide putting the young woman and her family through a trial.

He said Farrington continued to feel shame and guilt for the crash.

Farrington, appearing from Androscoggin County Jail via videoconference, apologized to his victims.

“I’m deeply sorry for my decisions and choices I made that day,” he said.

Gregoire had been a student at Maine Maritime Academy at the time of the crash, but had to miss a semester due to her injuries. Since then, she has returned to school and attended the Friday court hearing via videoconference aboard a ship in Bass Harbor off the coast of Maine, she said.

She said her broken bones continue to cause pain and limit her physically, preventing her from engaging in many of the actives she once enjoyed, such as scuba diving.

“I feel the consequences every day from it,” she said.

The emotional hearing Friday featured statements from Gregoire and her parents who fought off sobs at the memory of the crash and its aftermath.

Farrington chose to take drugs and get behind the wheel that day, Steve Gregoire told the judge.

The only choices given his daughter were how to react to the tow truck bearing down on her in her lane, Gregoire said: swerve right or left to try to avoid it.

She turned left into the center turning lane, probably saving her life, but Farrington at that moment sought to correct his error by turning back toward his lane resulting in the head-on collision, Steve Gregoire said.

Police later found syringes and fentanyl in Farrington’s backpack in the truck cab. A lab detected morphine and fentanyl in his urine.

Several witnesses told police they had seen the tow truck, which was carrying another vehicle, driven by Farrington, veering fully into the wrong lane before the crash.

Alesha Gregoire had been listed in critical condition and had to breathe through a tube after she was rushed to a nearby hospital.

Her father, testifying Friday, told the judge that day has haunted him ever since and he can still hear clearly his daughter’s cries and screams.

“That’s something that I cannot get out of my head,” he said.

Lewiston crash victim Alesha Gregoire appears  Friday in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn via videoconference aboard a ship off the Maine coast. Christopher Williams screenshot/Sun Journal

Assistant District Attorney Molly Butler Bailey shared a photo Friday in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn of the Subaru crushed in the Aug. 16, 2019, crash with a tow truck in Lewiston. Christopher Williams screenshot/Sun Journal