DALTON, Ga. — A 19-year-old Dalton man was charged with a felony in an August crash that left a fellow teenager in critical condition.

Austin Orion Burnette, 303 Crystal Place-14, was charged Tuesday with causing serious injury by vehicle and misdemeanor reckless driving. Burnette was one of the drivers in a two-car collision on the evening of Aug. 9 on East Walnut Avenue at the intersection of Sheridan Avenue.

Burnette was driving a 2005 Ford Mustang and was traveling west on Walnut Avenue when he collided with a 2002 Toyota Corolla driven by 18-year-old Keiri Suarez of Tunnel Hill. According to a Dalton Police Department press release issued after the wreck, Suarez tried to turn left onto Sheridan and Burnette “told officers he couldn’t stop in time to avoid the collision.”

At the time, authorities said Suarez had “life-threatening injuries.” According to an incident report from the police department, Burnette admitted to investigators that he was speeding “eight or nine miles per hour over the speed limit.”

“Our investigation determined he was traveling at a substantially high rate of speed at the time of the wreck and that was a contributing factor to the collision and warranted the serious injury charge,” DPD spokesman Bruce Frazier said.

Frazier said he didn’t have an update on the condition of Suarez, but according to the incident report, Suarez suffered a brain stem injury. The charge of causing serious injury according to the official criminal code of Georgia involves any incident, without malice, which “deprives a (person) of a member of his body, by rendering a member of his body useless, by seriously disfiguring his body or member thereof, or by causing organic brain damage which renders the body or any member thereof useless …”

Burnette was released on a $5,000 bond. The charge of serious injury by vehicle carries a possible prison sentence of up to 15 years.