DUI driver goes off NE 130th onto northbound I-5 landing on one car and hitting another

WSDOT Traffic cam photo

After midnight on Thursday, November 3, 2022 freeway lanes at NE 130th were completely blocked and State Patrol was diverting traffic off I-5 at Northgate.

A 45 year old Seattle man, who was subsequently charged with DUI and reckless driving, caused a four car melee that sent three people to Harborview.

Miraculously, one person in the melee was listed by the State Patrol as not injured and another was injured but not taken to a hospital.

The causing driver was traveling westbound on Roosevelt Way NE. At the intersection of NE 130th and 5th NE he drove off the roadway, down the hillside to the northbound lanes of I-5 where he landed on the front of a vehicle driven by a 30 year old Mountlake Terrace woman.

His vehicle then hit another vehicle, driven by a 28 year old Mountlake Terrace woman, and rolled over, landing on its top. Her vehicle also rolled over and struck the front end of a vehicle driven by a 30 year old man from Puyallup.

She and a passenger were not wearing seat belts. She was not injured but her passenger, a 29 year old woman from Everett, was partially ejected from the vehicle and ended up underneath their vehicle, which was on its top. She was critically injured and among those transported to Harborview.

The vehicles were spread across five lanes of the freeway, completely blocking four lanes.

Northbound 5 was blocked for seven hours and 32 minutes for the response, investigation, and clean up.

Three of the vehicles were totalled and the one driven by the Puyallup man had 'reportable damage."

After release from Harborview, the causing driver was booked into jail on a charge of vehicular assault.