GoFundMe page created for family shattered by suspected DUI crash

Loved ones of a family shattered by a suspected DUI crash in northwest Las Vegas are raising money to help the surviving victims.

Stephen Palmatier Jr., 37, of Las Vegas, was killed and his 3-year-old son, Wyatt, was critically injured in the two-vehicle crash on June 1 near Centennial Parkway and North Shaumber Road. Palmatier’s wife, Kristen, and their daughter, Riley, were injured.

Motorist Lisa Geurino, 38, of Las Vegas has been charged with DUI after Las Vegas police said she ran a stop sign and crashed her 2019 Jeep into the Palmatier family’s compact SUV at 4 a.m.

Stephen Palmatier’s sister, Cynthia Robertson of DeKalb, Illinois, has created a GoFundMe page to benefit the surviving victims.

“They were on their way to the airport to visit us when this happened,” Robertson said in a brief phone interview Wednesday, adding that “everyone is completely devastated.”

Robertson said her brother worked as a mechanical engineer in the Las Vegas Valley. He is described on the GoFundMe page as a “kind person who loved to laugh.”

“As a youth he got in trouble for laughing too much at school once for one thing, but he said he was laughing at three things and that’s why it was so funny,” the page states. “He loved his family, dirt bike riding, driving his truck and camping in the desert.”

Wyatt remained in critical condition at a local hospital, but Robertson said the child was recently moved out of the intensive care unit, and doctors are optimistic he will eventually make a full recovery.

Kristen Palmatier suffered minor injures, and their daughter was kept in a hospital overnight following the crash. The money is being raised to “help Kristen and her young children during these difficult times,” according to the GoFundMe page. As of Wednesday afternoon, the campaign had raised $7,000.

Geurino is facing six felonies, including two counts of DUI and four counts of failing to stop at the scene of an accident. Her defense attorney, Edward Miley, said Tuesday that she is expected to enter an inpatient rehabilitation facility after posting a $100,000 bail.

“I know she feels terrible about everything that has happened,” Miley said.

Police said in Geurino’s arrest report that she fled the scene of the crash on foot and initially denied involvement. Police said they later confirmed, however, that the Jeep was hers and that she was at a local casino just prior to the crash where she drank multiple shots of tequila.

Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.