Portland police said there’s been a 500% increase in traffic-related deaths compared to this time last year. Portland Police responded to a deadly crash on Southeast 160th and Powell Blvd., marking the eighth fatal crash in the city so far this year. Police said an impaired driver ran a red light, and “went through the intersection at 122 and Powell at an extremely high rate of speed, caused a terrible crash,” Sgt. Allen said. And at almost the same time, officers responded to another impaired driver across town. “A T-bone crash at 23 and Bybee, caused some really really serious injuries,” said Sgt. Allen. Sgt. Allen said that earlier in the week on Wednesday, “we had an officer that was on another crash, and a drunk driver crashed into the back of that patrol car at 85th and Glisan.”
A driver sped through parking lots, neighborhoods and, at times, drove in the wrong lane and toward pedestrians who narrowly escaped getting hit by the car. Police said the truck continued down the 14100 block of SE McGillivray Boulevard, crossed the lane of travel and hit a retaining wall. Then, the truck continued through it – into two homes and a parked car.
Investigators report the driver managed to crawl out of the passenger window, and briefly hid underneath the truck before he was taken into custody by police. Once the driver is released from the hospital, they said he will be charged with DUI and multiple counts of hit-and-run. No one was injured, besides the driver of the truck – who was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
In the Hazel Dell area of Clark County early Sunday morning Emergency responders from the sheriff’s office, Clark County Fire District 6 and American Medical Response responded to a serious two-vehicle collision at the intersection of Northeast Highway 99 and Northeast 88th Street just before 1 a.m., according to a news release from the sheriff’s office. Responding officers found a gold 2005 Ford F250 pickup truck, which had been reported stolen by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, according to the news release.
The F250 had been travelling south on Highway 99 in the outside lane when it ran a red light at 88th Street and struck a gray 2013 Mercedes sedan that had been travelling eastbound through the intersection. The driver of the Mercedes, identified in the news release as 52-year-old William Stevens of Vancouver, had to be extracted from the car. He was taken to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, where he died from his injuries.
The driver of the F250 fled on foot eastbound along 88th Street, according to the news release. Witnesses described the suspect as a white male adult.
