A Whitehorse man found guilty of impaired driving causing bodily harm for an incident in December 2009 went back to trial Monday, with painful testimony from witnesses and a victim returning to the fore in a case of courtroom déjà-vu.

Michael Schmidt, 32, was behind the wheel, accompanied by two friends, in his Honda Civic after they had consumed several drinks and decided to drive to Haines Junction on Dec. 14, 2009.

The trio was proceeding down the Alaska Highway when the car hit a frost heave near the Takhini River crossing, skidded off the road and rolled into the ditch.

Jessica Frotten and Michael Sanderson, who were not wearing seat belts, were thrown from the vehicle, injuring both and paralyzing Frotten from the waist down.

The original ruling on both counts against Schmidt was set aside by the Yukon Court of Appeal in November 2012.

The appeal panel decided the trial judge had not found beyond a reasonable doubt that his ability to drive was negatively affected.

Frotten took the stand in Yukon Supreme Court on Monday afternoon.

She recalled meeting Schmidt and Sanderson at her parents' home the morning of the accident.

"They said they were up late (the night before) and partying ... celebrating his arrival into town, I guess,” Frotten said, referring to Sanderson.

"By partying, what did you understand him to mean?” asked Crown prosecutor David McWhinnie.

"Drinking,” she replied.

She added that the two friends were sharing a Gatorade bottle that contained alcohol.

As to whether the two young men were drunk that morning, she said Schmidt didn't appear to be, though Sanderson might have been intoxicated: "He was kind of loud, but maybe that was just his personality.”

The three of them went to the Airport Chalet lounge for lunch, where they split two pitchers of beer.

They then decided to go to Haines Junction so Frotten could buy moccasins there for her sister.

First, they stopped by the Yukon Brewery to pick up a 15-pack of beer as well as 40 defective cans, which Frotten obtained free as an employee.

"We were all a little intoxicated,” she told the court. "I know I was.”

She retrieved the beer while the two men tried several 30-millilitre draught samples.

Frotten also said Schmidt seemed to have no difficulty driving the car in Whitehorse and on the highway toward Haines Junction.

"I think Michael Schmidt liked to drive fast. He drove fast out of the driveway, fast down the street.”

Two or three beer cans were opened in the car before they hit the highway.

No other intoxicants were consumed.

Sanderson started to nod off in the back seat.

"Looking back, was the alcohol starting to have an effect on you?” McWhinnie asked.

"Yeah, yeah it was. I was feeling like I was getting drunk,” Frotten said.

She said the car was going 140 km/h when it encountered a series of frost heaves.

"We drove over them and our heads hit the roof of the car. And I told him to slow down.”

Schmidt said during his trial in 2011 that he was driving closer to 100 km/h and that no one had told him to slow down.

"If anyone had asked me to slow down, I would have immediately,” he said on the witness stand 2 1/2 years ago.

"I don't remember if he slowed down. That's one of my last memories (before the crash),” she said.

Frotten was not wearing her seat belt properly, with the shoulder strap behind her against the seat.

School bus driver Charlie MacKenzie was travelling the Alaska Highway on his usual route from Takhini South to Mendenhall that afternoon when he spotted Schmidt on the road moments after the mishap at around 4:20 p.m.

"I seen him actually running across the highway to the right-hand side of the road,” MacKenzie told the court.

"At the same time, I seen the tracks heading off the left-hand side of the road.... It was laying on its side next to the tree line just past the trail that goes off into the Ibex valley.”

He pulled over his bus, still full of young children.

"I stopped and opened up the door and he stood in the doorway on the ground and asked me if I would call for help.

"He said somebody was hurt.”

Though he was out of contact range for the Takhini Transport office dispatcher, MacKenzie contacted another school bus driver who relayed the message back to headquarters, where an employee called emergency services personnel.

MacKenzie described the nearby frost heaves as "fairly long, swooping dips.

"As long as I was doing the speed limit, it wasn't a major problem.”

He said the road was "pretty bare” of snow or ice, a point of contention in the 2011 trial and an apparent source of error by Justice Ron Veale, who, the appeal court said, did not establish whether there was significant frost at the time of the accident.

Eleanor Emke was driving back from a carpentry job in Haines Junction when she came across the scene.

"It was icy. There were a couple of big frost heaves,” she testified, noting the temperature was close to -25 C. "There was a bunch of debris ... all scattered in the ditch.”

Schmidt ran toward her vehicle as she pulled over.

"‘I have two people I need to get to the hospital – can you help me?'” he asked her.

Emke manoeuvred her pickup closer to the victims, got out and spotted Frotten lying on her back near the treeline.

"It looked like she was dying to me,” Schmidt testified in 2011.

Emke helped Sanderson off the ground and into the back seat of her truck. He suffered a shoulder injury.

On top of a severed spinal cord, Frotten suffered from broken ribs, feet and clavical as well as a punctured lung and torn aorta, she told the court Monday.

Emke and Schmidt picked up Frotten by the waist and lifted her into the front passenger seat.

"Ms. Frotten had blood coming out of the right side of her forehead and a bruise on the left side of her stomach,” she said.

"She was falling in and out of consciousness.... She kept saying, ‘I can't feel my legs.'”

Emke said she could tell Sanderson was "quite impaired.

"He was slurring his words, he was babbling and he stunk like alcohol.”

She said she could smell alcohol on Schmidt's clothes but not on his breath.

"He walked pretty good. He talked normal, had good conversation.”

She added during cross-examination from the defence that she had had no concerns about his sobriety and would have been comfortable with him driving her truck.

Wracked with emotion, he told her what happened as they drove toward Whitehorse with the goal of intercepting an ambulance that had been called.

"He said it was like the hand of God came down and smacked the car,” Emke told the court.

"He was upset, crying.”

She spotted the ambulance about 24 kilometres south of the scene, and the victims were transported to Whitehorse General Hospital.

Schmidt got into the back of an RCMP car.

Breathalyzer results show his blood-alcohol level was 0.07, just below the legal limit, about three hours following the crash.

RCMP expert Brian Image testified in 2011 that based on his calculations, Schmidt's blood-alcohol level would have been over the legal limit when the car rolled.

However, Image said his assessment was only accurate if Schmidt had not consumed any alcohol in the 30 minutes leading up to the crash.

The re-trial is slated to run through Thursday, presided over by Justice Stephen Hillier.

The three-judge appeal panel ruled unanimously in November 2012 that some consumption of alcohol and the smell of alcohol on someone's breath are not enough to assume impairment.

Schmidt admitted to driving at 110 to 113 km/h at the time of the rollover. The speed limit in the area is 90 km/h.

Justice Christopher Hinkson pointed to evidence that speeding is common in the territory.

The justices also highlighted evidence of the road's condition at the time of the crash. The trial judge found no evidence of frost heaves, which Schmidt blamed for what happened.

Schmidt's evidence was contradicted by an RCMP officer, but others who testified in 2011 affirmed the presence of frost heaves — reaffirmed Monday during the re-trial.

Overall, the justices ruled those factors were insufficient to find impairment.

Initially sentenced to eight months in jail and a three-year driving ban, Schmidt spent several months behind bars but was released pending appeal in 2012.