By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — The epileptic garbage truck driver who killed two British tourists when he slipped into a seizure behind the wheel slipped past mandatory medical screening designed to bar people like him from driving heavy trucks, a federal official said Thursday.
Auvryn Scarlett, a driver for the private waste management company Action Carting, would never have passed the mandatory medical screening to drive the massive truck if he had been honest about his seizure history, an official from the federal oversight board said.
U.S. Department of Transportation supervisor Doris Eusebio said every commercial truck driver in the country has to clear a doctor's exam before getting hired, and then be re-examined every two years.
Scarlett couldn't have even been considered for the job because his last siezure happened within the past 10 years, under federal law.
Eusebio did not say who examined Scarlett or when he was last screened.
Scarlett has had epilepsy since 1997, but told investigators he hasn't taken his medication for over a decade, according to the Daily News. And he went out on disability from his last garbage-carting job when he suffered a seizure in 2007.
Jacklyn Timmons and Andrew Hardie, both 47, were a block from their midtown hotel when Scarlett's massive rig jumped a curb on W. 35th Street and killed them both in Feb. 2008.
Scarlett is charged with two counts of murder and a felony assault.
