Witnesses describe vehicle crash outside local bar as ‘pure chaos’

ENCINITAS — There may have been even more victims of a horrific incident earlier this month after a man plowed a U-Haul rental van into a crowd gathered outside The Shelter bar in downtown Encinitas, save for one thing.

“There is a large tree that was hit and without that tree, there would’ve been a lot more injuries,” one of the first responders Mike Spaulding, Battalion Chief for the Encinitas Fire Department, told onscene.tv on March 1, the night of the incident.

Spaulding said five people, including the driver, were transported to the hospital that night, three of them with serious traumatic injuries.

One of the victims, a 25-year-old man, reportedly suffered a serious leg injury and has undergone multiple surgeries. Another male victim, 24,  was reported to have suffered two collapsed lungs, fractured ribs, a broken arm and was being treated in intensive care at one point.

According to the San Diego Sheriff’s Department a third victim — a male security guard — was treated for minor injuries at a hospital. Two people also received minor injuries when they detained the driver at the scene before deputies arrived.

The incident happened around 1:30 a.m. when 29-year-old Christian Dwight Davis drove a van into a crowd of people standing outside of Shelter Encinitas bar, sheriff’s officials said. 

Davis, a North Carolina native who lives in Fallbrook, had been at The Saloon when he was asked to leave because he was intoxicated.

According to witnesses, there was an altercation between Davis and the bar’s security guards and he threatened them as he left.

“He was like ‘I’m gonna come back for you guys’,” witness Tyler Harris told onscene.tv, describing Davis as belligerent. “We didn’t think it was anything, we kinda thought it was just like, you know, he was just talking this talk.”

Harris said 10 minutes later, he was standing next to the palm trees out in front of The Saloon talking to one of his friends from high school, “and all I hear is, ‘Everyone look out!’ and I look down towards 7-11 over here and this U-Haul van is just driving down the sidewalk and it’s coming towards us.

“We all jump out of the way and then it runs straight into Saloon, took off the whole door, glass shattered all over us…everyone was just freaking out. One guy got hit I think his leg might’ve got broken. And then a lot of people were just hysterical at that point, we didn’t really know what was going on.”

Davis pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on March 4. He’s been charged with two counts of attempted premeditated murder, one count of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury and one charge of felony drunk driving. If convicted of all charges, he faces life in prison.

Davis is currently in isolation at the Vista Detention Facility. His bail was set at $1 million.

He was expected back in court March 12 for a readiness hearing and a preliminary hearing has been set for March 17.

People who witnessed the incident said it was a gory and hectic scene.

Alex Anaya and a friend tended to the man with the serious leg injury, saying the man was bleeding out all over the floor and his leg was like a “flopped fish.”

“We put him up on the table, I just grabbed my belt and this other guy, too, grabs his belt, we put it as a tourniquet and then we’re just holding his leg until the cops arrived,” Anaya told onscene.tv.

“It was pure chaos,” another witness, Josh Lyman, told onscene.tv. “I just did what I could. I got my boy out the way and that’s all I could do.”

Friends Austin Purdey and Nathan Pucci, who are regulars at Shelter bar, said they narrowly escaped harm and told onscene.tv they’d never seen anything like it.

“It’s something I’ve never seen before,” Purdey said. “This is North County San Diego, man, it’s all peace and love here, you know, I don’t know what happened.”