Former soccer player Mason Thorton was sentenced by an English court to 47 months behind bars after he crashed his car in 2022, leaving a friend in a vegetative state from his injuries.
Thorton inhaled nitrous oxide—laughing gas—and got behind the wheel of his BMW and tore down the UK’s highway A19 at 80 miles per hour. He crashed the car into a guardrail, which threw his friend Harlan Moon out of the car and gave him a broken skull and brain bleeding.
Moon, now 25, has been in a vegetative state since the crash and cannot care for himself, needing around the clock help. During a recent sentencing hearing for Thorton, the court heard how the pair left a party and started huffing the intoxicating gas in Thorton’s care. Moon’s parents and siblings attended the hearing at Teesside Crown Court.
Prosecutor Emma Atkinson told the court how Thorton, formerly of Darlington FC, met up with two young women along with his friend Harlan Moon. The group was discussing how they wanted to do “smartwhips,” a term referring to inhaling nitrous oxide from balloons. The group got rowdy and the host kicked them out of the house party they were attending, so they piled in Thorton’s car where he gave them balloons filled with the gas.
Nitrous oxide has a legitimate use in dental anesthesia, helping to relax nervous patients. But it must be given while being medically monitored.
One of the two women apparently took video that showed Thorton inhaling the gas while he was driving. As he approached 80 miles per hour, Thornton’s car swerved and hit a traffic barrier. The crash was so violent it dislodged the barrier from its base, and the barrier ended up wrapped around Thorton’s crumpled BMW.
Harlan Moon was so badly injured surgeons had to cut off part of his skull to relieve the pressure built up by the brain bleeding.
A man who stopped at the crash to help told the court that Thorton said “I didn’t mean it. I fell asleep.”
That was the end of Harlan Moon’s normal life. He now has no awareness of where he is or who he or anyone else is, and has to be cared for 24 hours a day.
Harlon now has to rely on others daily for every aspect of his care and has “no awareness of himself or of his environment,” according to Emma.
Investigators found 15 cylinders of the laughing gas in Thornton’s BMW.
Messages from the former footballer’s phone revealed that he had been selling the drug for at least two months.
Judge Jonathan Carroll told Thornton that “this was obviously so dangerous”.
He added that the 21-year-old had given “no explanation” for his actions.
