Immigrant receives 18 year sentence in drunk-driving death

ATHENS - A Mexican immigrant has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for vehicular homicide in the death of a 39-year-old Athens man who saved the life of a baby in a stroller when he jumped in front of a speeding car. <br> <br> Twenty-seven-year-old Ricardo Arriaga-Gutierrez, 27, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years on the vehicular homicide charge and received three consecutive sentences for leaving the scene of an accident, driving without insurance and driving without a license. He pleaded guilty to the charges on November sixth. <br> <br> Randy Burris, a father of three, saved a two-month-old baby girl and her mother when he pushed them out of the way of Arriaga-Gutierrez&#39;s speeding car in November of 2001. He died two days after the crash. <br> <br> District Attorney Ken Mauldin said Burris was ``truly a hero on that particular day. We all lost a good man on that day -- this community did.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> According to court testimony, Arriaga-Gutierrez stopped his car, backed up and fled the scene, then tried to hide the car in Jackson County. <br> <br> When he was arrested several hours after the incident, Arriaga-Gutierrez had a blood alcohol level of 0.245 at the time, prosecutors said. The legal limit is 0.08. <br> <br> Arriaga-Gutierrez worked at a poultry processing plant for about a year before his arrest.