Woman charged with vehicular assault following suspected DUI crash in North Kitsap
Prosecutors charged a 43-year-old Silverdale woman accused of driving under the influence and causing a collision involving three vehicles on Highway 307 late Saturday night with a count of vehicular assault.
Law enforcement responded to the crash scene in the 24000 block of Highway 307 — Bond Road — at about 11:50 p.m. Saturday night. The highway was closed for about four and a half hours following the crash, the Washington State Patrol reported in a press memo.
A Kitsap County sheriff's deputy wrote in a report that the crash occurred directly in front of him and noted that one of the vehicles involved nearly struck his patrol vehicle. The deputy wrote that he had been driving north on the highway following a large Dodge Ram truck when he saw sparks fly from vehicles colliding about 100 yards in front of his vehicle and then saw a southbound vehicle, a Hyundai Sonata, which appeared to have struck a guard rail, spin in the road directly toward his vehicle. He drove to the shoulder to avoid being hit.
He spotted a Toyota Camry that was on its roof in the ditch alongside the road and later noted that a third vehicle, a Honda CR-V, was also involved in the collision.
The deputy wrote that he saw the occupants of the Camry extricating themselves from the vehicle with the assistance of another motorist. He then checked with the driver of the Sonata, who was standing on the shoulder, uninjured. The deputy observed her speech to be slurred, and she said she had been drinking that evening after getting off work.
A WSP trooper spoke to the woman: "I asked her about the details of the collision and she had told me that she was attempting to overtake a vehicle when her vehicle collided into another vehicle. As she spoke to me, I could smell the odor of intoxicants coming from her breath. I asked her how much alcohol she had to drink and she told me two drinks."
The woman submitted to field sobriety testing, and a preliminary breath test registered a .110 reading, according to court documents. The trooper arrested the woman for driving under the influence.
While working at the scene, the trooper learned that there was a "possible back injury and possible broken foot," which prompted law enforcement to investigate the incident as a vehicular assault, according to court documents. Two people who were in the Camry were injured and taken to St. Michael Medical Center, WSP said in a press memo.
Investigators determined that the Sonata, Camry and CR-V had been traveling south on Highway 307 when the Sonata attempted to pass the other two vehicles in the oncoming lane and then struck them, the memo said.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Woman charged with vehicular assault in North Kitsap crash
