CI throws up HTML page for db errors

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
If I have a typo in a SQL query - maybe from generated SQL, maybe from misconfigured customer files, could be anything - CI throws a fit, "Internal Server Error 500", a HTML page detailing the error and stops further execution.

Is there a simple way to catch this error somehow, and deal with in myself?

Because in this case it's an Ajax request and the JavaScript code I have in place that also checks for success/failure can't do anything with it, so instead of showing an error, the script just sits there..