Spanaway man killed, girlfriend hurt after collision with 14-year-old driver

SPANAWAY, Wash. — A Spanaway woman is recovering after a deadly, two-vehicle crash that killed her longtime boyfriend, and authorities say the second vehicle was driven by a 14-year-old boy.

The crash happened just before 3 a.m. Sunday in Elk Plain, near Spanaway, at milepost 47 on State Route 7 or Mountain Highway East.

Christopher J. Hall, 50, died at the scene. His girlfriend and the teenager were taken to hospitals in Tacoma.

The woman is in bad shape but she was able to talk from her hospital room at St. Joseph Medical Center.

Loliene Johnson says she hurts all over so she is on a lot of pain medication. But the doctors at St. Joseph can’t mend her broken heart.

“Physically, I hurt,” she said. “My ribs, my leg, hurt. Emotionally, not good at all,” said Johnson.

That is the sad assessment the 50-year-old Spanaway woman delivered from her hospital room in the intensive care unit at St. Joseph.

Johnson says she and her boyfriend, “CJ,” to those he knew and loved, were driving a stranger to get gasoline for his disabled vehicle when they made a U-turn.

She was asked if she saw the 14-year-old driver heading toward them.

“No,” she said. “I seen [sic] headlights and I don’t know how close.”

She says one vehicle passed them but the red car the young teen was driving kept coming.

“I don’t know,” said Johnson. “All I remember, I was crawling out of the vehicle.”

She was asked if she remembered the crash.

“No, I don’t remember the crash,” she said. “I don’t remember getting hit. I don’t remember any of it.”

A neighbor, who asked not to be identified, heard the crash and rushed out to help. She could also hear Johnson crying out.

“I’m hearing this yelling, ‘help, help, help,’” the woman said. “And the lady who was a passenger in the silver car, she’s coming back down the street.”

Johnson would soon get the worst news of all about CJ.

“I was in the ambulance when I heard the EMTs say that he died,” she said, her voice breaking. “I thought he was okay. I thought he was alive.”

She says the third person with them crawled out and took off. Washington State Patrol says they don’t know about a third person.

As for the teen, he was taken to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital also in Tacoma.  He had facial trauma and at least one broken bone.

Investigators are still trying to determine which driver, the 50-year-old deceased man or the teenager, caused the tragedy.

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