SEATTLE — A man is in police custody at Harborview Medical Center on suspicion of drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident after authorities say he drove the wrong way on State Route 520 and caused a head-on collision with a Washington State Patrol trooper overnight.
According to WSP spokeswoman Trooper Julie Judson, a call came into dispatch from a construction crew member working on SR 520 who saw a vehicle heading the wrong way near the 84th Street exit. A trooper in the area went to investigate and was struck head-on near Lake Washington Boulevard.
The responding trooper was not seriously injured in the crash but Judson said that if the crash had happened any other way, they "could have been looking at a fatality accident."
After the crash, the suspect took off and proceeded onto Interestate 5, heading northbound in the southbound lanes.
Seattle police officers located the suspect's vehicle near the Northeast 45th Street exit on I-5. They apprehended the suspect in the 4200 block of 5th Avenue Northeast after he had jumped 20 feet down a fenced-off overpass area.