A drunken driver has been branded an "idiot" by a judge after he seriously injured a man as he drove around searching for more booze.
Svajunas Vaitiekus was jailed for three years and banned from the roads for five years when he appeared at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday, October 3.
He admitted he was driving dangerously and had been unfit to drive because he had been drinking.
Vaitiekus, 36, of Heathcote Street, Nottingham, was driving on the wrong side of the road when he was involved in a collision with a driver who nearly died.
The injured man will now have to have a colostomy – a surgical procedure that brings one end of the large intestine out through an opening (stoma) made in the abdominal wall, so waste can drain into a bag.
Judge Michael Stokes QC told Vaitiekus the man's life had been devastated by his grossly reckless behaviour when he was drunk.
"No matter how careful one may drive on the roads, far too often there is an idiot like you coming the other way.
"You shouldn't have been behind the wheel at all. You were unfit to walk down the road, never mind drive down the road.
"When your blood was tested some time after this collision, you were more than double the legal limit for driving."
Vaitiekus appeared to have been drinking all day until he ran out of supplies and went to look for more.
He drove a Mercedes in Underwood on the wrong side when he injured the other driver, a 22-year-old hard-working man looking forward to getting married, the court heard.
"He very nearly died," the judge commented.
"The injuries he sustained were life-threatening and life-changing.
"He will never forget that day, although he has little recollection of the impact, because he will be permanently reminded of it by his injuries."
Vaitiekus, who speaks Lithuanian, received three years for dangerous driving and four months concurrent for being unfit to drive.
In mitigation, Christine Luckock said her client had been advised an immediate sentence of some length was inevitable.
She had urged the judge: "I ask you to take account of his guilty plea, his lack of previous convictions and his remorse."
