A Pine County man has been charged with crashing his car while drunk and leaving his wife behind with an injury that killed her weeks later.

Gerald O. Darkow Sr., 72, was charged Monday in Pine County District Court with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the single-vehicle wreck on Oct. 16 in Sandstone that led to 69-year-old Rosemary Darkow's death on Nov. 2.

Gerald Darkow was charged by summons and has a court date scheduled for Oct. 4.

Reached by telephone Wednesday, Gerald Darkow said, "I did not leave her at the scene. She jumped out of the car when I hit that [dumpster]."

According to the criminal complaint:

A deputy responding to a 911 call met about 1:10 a.m. with Rosemary Darkow at the scene, where she reported being in the car when her husband hit a dumpster outside a home, then left her in the street with a scraped knee.

A man who lives nearby told the deputy that the Darkows had been drinking at his house shortly before the crash. He said Gerald Darkow had "too many" whiskey drinks, the charges quoted the man as saying.

The deputy met with an obviously intoxicated Gerald Darkow at his house, where the damaged car was parked in the drive. He said he did not recall hitting the dumpster.

He first told the deputy he had three drinks and then said five. A preliminary breath test measured Gerald Darkow's blood alcohol content at 0.161%, more than twice the legal limit for driving in Minnesota. A follow-up test administered about 90 minutes after the crash came back at 0.18%.

On Nov. 2, deputies were called to the Darkows' home on a report that Rosemary was unconscious and not breathing. Emergency responders pronounced her dead at the scene.

An autopsy conducted by the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office noted extensive bruising on Rosemary Darkow's left leg and determined that she died from blood clots "due to blunt force lower-extremity trauma due to [a] motor vehicle crash," the complaint quoted the autopsy as concluding.