Tag: rollover

Crash on I-5 brings rush hour traffic to a crawl near Sunset exit


Written by | The Bellingham Herald | November 26, 2012

By Caleb Hutton

Updated at 6 p.m. See bottom of this post.

A rollover crash on northbound Interstate 5 on Monday evening, Nov. 26, sent one woman to St. Joseph hospital with minor injuries and caused a long traffic jam south of the Sunset Drive exit.

At this point, we heard a report of a 20-year-old “slumped over on the ground” at the scene. That didn’t sound good.

But Washington State Patrol Trooper Mark Francis told me minutes later all injuries were minor. One person was taken by ambulance to St. Joseph hospital as a precaution.

Traffic was still stalled more than a half hour later.

Update: Here’s the narrative, as told by Trooper Francis:

A Chevy Cavalier was tailing a Ford Mustang at 5 p.m. in the left lane of northbound I-5, just south of Sunset Drive. The Ford slowed for traffic up ahead. The Chevy didn’t slow down in time.

The Chevy driver swerved left to avoid a rear-end crash. But it clipped the back left corner of the other car. The Chevy flipped and went hurtling into a cement barrier.

One person in the Chevy was taken to St. Joseph hospital with neck pain. Nobody else was hurt.

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Photos: No injuries in bizarre rollover crash in downtown Bellingham


Written by | The Bellingham Herald | November 20, 2012

By Caleb Hutton

BELLINGHAM — Nobody was hurt when a Honda Civic clipped the back of a parked car on Flora Street, smashed into the side of a pickup and landed on its roof Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 20.

Police suspect the driver, Billy Joe Pinnell, 23, was under the influence of heroin. He was driving a dark green Honda west at 3:15 p.m. in the 200 block of Flora Street when its front right wheel hit the rear left wheel of a parked, older model Mercedes E-500.

Somehow, the Honda flipped over.

The back of the Honda pinballed into an oncoming Ford F-150, causing minor damage to both vehicles and stripping off the driver’s side mirror of the truck. Police were confounded by how the car flipped so quickly, when the evidence suggested it was going the speed limit.

“You tell me,” said Sgt. Mark Stokes. “I have no idea how a vehicle in that short a space can tip like that.”

Another officer chimed in that the rubber-on-rubber of the Honda’s wheel hitting the Mercedes’ wheel might have caused enough friction for the car to flip.

Danna Bowers, who witnessed the crash, was just as confounded as the cops.

“It happened so fast and I’m still trying to figure out how it’s even possible,” she said.

Pinnell was led from the scene wrapped in a blue blanket and smoking a cigarette.

Here are the photos. The flipped Honda hit the grayish Mercedes in the background.

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