I-215 Wrong-way Driver Seriously Injures Lake Elsinore Woman

Murrieta CA

31 December, 2020

12:35 PM

Description

MENIFEE, CA — A police pursuit that began in Hemet ended with the suspect driving the wrong way on Interstate 215 in Menifee, leading to a head-on crash that seriously injured a Lake Elsinore woman. The incident was reported about 2:40 a.m. Thursday near the Scott Road exit on the northbound side of the freeway. According to a preliminary report from the California Highway Patrol, Hemet police officers were pursuing two males in a 1998 Dodge Ram pickup truck that was heading southbound on Antelope Road. To avoid capture, the driver sped away, turned off all of the truck's lights, and made an escape by crashing through the I-215 perimeter fence and then drove south on the northbound side of the freeway, the CHP reported. At that point, Hemet police stopped the chase, according to the CHP. With the truck still moving but slowed, the two males jumped out of the vehicle onto the freeway and fled on foot into a nearby field. Meanwhile, the rolling truck — with no lights on — was in the #2 freeway lane when the 55-year-old Lake Elsinore woman, driving north in a 2016 Dodge ProMaster van at approximately 65 mph, approached. According to the CHP, she didn't see the darkened truck and plowed into it. The woman was hospitalized at Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar. At press time, the truck's occupants had not been publicly identified and no arrests were yet announced. —Toni McAllister EDITOR'S NOTE: The CHP previously reported the woman died from her injuries.