Fleet-footed driver caught

The Daily Inter Lake

Charges are pending against a driver who was caught by witnesses after he allegedly fled from a head-on accident Monday evening on U.S. 93. No one was seriously hurt.

Two men reportedly saw the 20-year-old man run from the crash just outside the Ponderosa Estates subdivision.

They chased him with their vehicles and kept him cornered until sheriff's deputies arrived a few minutes later.

The suspect went by ambulance to the hospital to have a facial injury checked. By 9 p.m., he still hadn't been booked into the jail. Montana Highway Patrol is in charge of the investigation.

Paul Erickson, one of the witnesses, said he didn't see the accident, but arrived moments later. He called 911 and checked the family in the other vehicle. They didn't seem seriously hurt, he said.

Then his attention was drawn to the young man running from the wreck to the east, north of Ponderosa Estates.

Erickson and another man got each other's attention.

"We jumped in our trucks and went over there," he said.

By the time they cornered him on Chestnut Drive, the man had run a quarter mile, Erickson estimated.

He didn't resist when Erickson told him to sit down and wait for officers. But then, Erickson had a steel pipe in his hand.

The other man involved in the chase didn't return a phone call asking permission to use his name Monday night.

Erickson scoffed at the idea that he had done anything out of the ordinary, even though a misstep in a gopher hole took a toll on his calf during the pursuit.

"When I saw that guy running … you just do what you have to do," he said.