SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - A Spokane County jury on Friday acquitted a Deer Park man of vehicular homicide in a November 2005 head-on crash that killed five children from a Chewelah family.

The jury found 58-year-old Clifford L. Helm not guilty of five counts of first-degree vehicular homicide in the collision on U.S. Highway 395 north of Spokane that killed the children between the ages of 2 and 12.

Helm also was acquitted of one count of vehicular assault.

Helm took the stand to say he didn't remember the collision that also severely injured him, but testified he had a coughing fit and passed out. Prosecutors contended Helm was using a cellular phone when he drove hundreds of feet in the wrong direction before the crash.

Washington State Patrol investigators concluded Helm drove through a grassy median, then drove 244 feet in the wrong direction before smashing head-on into the truck carrying Jeffrey Schrock and the children.

Killed in the crash were Schrock's children: Carmen, 12, Jana, 10, Carinna, 8, Jerryll, 5, and Craig, 2.

The investigation was complicated by the Schrock family's reluctance to pursue prosecution, based on their religious beliefs.

Carolyn Schrock, Jeffrey Schrock's wife, the children's mother and a member of a tiny Mennonite community, publicly forgave Helm while he and her husband were recovering in a Spokane hospital.

Members of the sect attended the trial and were in the courtroom when the verdicts were announced Friday.

WSP investigators testified they found no indication that Helm was drunk or on drugs or prescription medications at the time of the accident. The State Patrol subpoenaed cell phone records that showed Helm had briefly used his cell phone just before the crash.

Schrock was called to testify against Helm, whom his family had befriended after the crash, and told jurors he assumed the truck he saw in the median just before the crash was a state highway vehicle. He said he then saw the truck climb onto the highway heading directly at him.

Schrock, who was confined to a wheelchair for two months after the Nov. 1, 2005 collision, suffered internal bleeding, a head wound and multiple broken bones, including a pelvis shattered in five places.