Wrong-way driver avoids crashes

Traveling more than 70 miles per hour, a truck speeding the wrong way up U.S. 2 zoomed through a crowded intersection Tuesday evening, narrowly missing cars and poles.

The driver, found unconscious after his vehicle skidded to a stop near the Halfmoon Road intersection, was transported to Kalispell Regional Medical Center in unknown condition.

Off-duty Flathead County Sheriff’s Detective Bret Childers was headed to Whitefish with his wife when he witnessed the crash.

Westbound on U.S. 2 in his truck, Childers had a green light as he was approaching the intersection. “I looked to the left and I noticed a truck coming at a high rate of speed,” he said, “I just knew. I thought, ‘There is no way he is going to stop.’ So I slammed on my brakes.”

Childers watched the truck, headed north in the southbound lane of U.S. 2, run a red light and blow past the 10 or so cars near the intersection. The truck became temporarily airborne as it jumped the median, missed two poles and skidded between two vehicles before it slid to a stop in a grassy ditch.

A midsized sport utility vehicle traveling eastbound had just cleared the intersection and a westbound Subaru Outback had to slam on its brakes to avoid getting T-boned.

“If he had hit somebody, he would’ve killed them,” Childers said. “I can’t believe there wasn’t a vehicle that got hit. A bunch of people got lucky.”

Pat Walsh, detective sergeant with the Sheriff’s Office who also happened upon the scene, said the driver was driving as if he were intoxicated.

“It could’ve been a bad one,” he said. “We were astounded to find he had a seat belt on.”

The man and a dog were the only ones in the vehicle.

Emergency workers at the scene said the driver was unconscious but had a strong pulse.