NATCHEZ — The driver in a Canal Street wreck that injured five teens, partially paralyzing the driver and a friend, has been charged with felony DUI more than a year after the accident.

Dylan Pressgrove, 18, 3804 Edgewood Road, turned himself in to NPD late Friday after being notified he was being charged, Police Chief Mike Mullins said.

Mullins said charges were not pursed until now because of the extent of injuries Presgrove sustained in the accident.

Mullins said Pressgrove was too unstable to be charged with the crime when the incident occurred.

Felony DUI charges are used when a legally intoxicated person is the driver of a vehicle that wrecks and causes permanent and debilitating injuries, Mullins said.

Pressgrove was released on medical recognizance shortly after he was booked into custody Friday.

The 2002 4-wheel drive, 4-door GMC pickup driven by Pressgrove, who was 17 at the time, crashed into a tree at the intersection of Canal and Madison streets early on New Year’s Day 2010.

Pressgrove and passengers Deacon Newman, Cody Strickland, Jennifer Scudiero and Charles M. Fos, who goes by the name Matthew Rymer, were all transported to area hospitals.

Newman, Strickland and Scudiero have fully recovered from injuries.

Pressgrove and Rymer remain partially paralyzed. Both teens spent weeks hospitalized following the accident.

Pressgrove later spent time at an Atlanta rehab facility, where he learned to care for himself with limited hand mobility.

Rymer, Newman and Scudiero graduated from Trinity Episcopal Day School last spring.

Pressgrove and Strickland were juniors at the time of the accident.

Mullins said in April there was probable cause — based on blood alcohol tests — to charge Pressgrove.

The affidavit filed in municipal court Feb. 11 alleges Pressgrove was operating a vehicle while “under the influence of alcohol and having .08 percent or more by weight volume of alcohol in his blood.”

The affidavit cites Pressgrove for “causing permanent and disabling injuries to Charles Matthew Fos.”

Pressgrove reportedly lost control of the vehicle after speeding over the former railroad bed on Canal Street. The high hump was shaved down several months after the wreck.