UPDATE: Olson reopens after crash investigation; passenger hurt, driver arrested

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6:10 PM: If you are heading to the east end of the Roxbury corridor, be forewarned that traffic is being diverted off Olson because of a crash investigation. Eastbound is going onto 4th; westbound, onto Myers Way. The crash was more than 2 hours ago and didn’t sound huge at the time, but one person was seriously hurt and the Traffic Collision Investigation Squad was called out.

7:54 PM: SDOT promises a Twitter update when the scene’s clear. We’re monitoring (via scanner too) but if you see that it’s cleared and we haven’t updated yet, please let us know – thank you!

9:11 PM: Still closed.

9:52 PM: Now open again, per SPD via SDOT.

ADDED MONDAY 10:51 AM: We followed up today with SFD and SPD. SFD said a 45-year-old woman was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. And SPD has just posted this:

Detectives from the Traffic Collision Investigation Squad (TCIS) were called out Sunday afternoon to investigate a serious injury vehicular assault hit and run incident in West Seattle.

On Sunday, March 4th, at about 3:30 pm, a Nissan Pathfinder, occupied by a 54-year-old male driver and a 45-year-old female passenger, was traveling westbound in the 9400 block of Olson Place Southwest. At about the same time, a utility van towing a large trailer was traveling eastbound on Olson Place Southwest. The Nissan crossed over the center line and collided with the utility van. The collision caused the Nissan to spin around and face eastbound. The driver of the van was not injured. The driver of the Nissan then drove approximately a quarter of a mile away from the scene of the collision, finally stopping on 1st Avenue South, just west of the Highway 509 on-ramp.

The female passenger in the Nissan was seriously injured and transported to Harborview Medical Center (HMC) via Seattle Fire medics. The male driver of the Nissan was also transported to HMC, and evaluated at the hospital by a Drug-Recognition Expert officer and it was determined that he was impaired. After the driver was treated at HMC, he was booked into the King County Jail for investigation of vehicular assault. The female passenger remains in the hospital. TCIS detectives will continue to handle the follow-up investigation.

DM March 4, 2018 (7:01 pm)

Still closed! Couldn’t get down the hill at 5:30 and couldn’t come up from 509 at 6:40!

WSB March 4, 2018 (7:04 pm)

Yeah, when TCI is called out they are usually at work for a few hours. SDOT has yet to issue an advisory about this on its Twitter channel aside from mentioning the crash itself hours ago. Sorry we didn’t get clued in sooner – when somebody finally texted us to ask about it, we were already headed that way after catching scanner discussion that made it clear there was a closure involved. – TR

Willow March 4, 2018 (9:10 pm)

By the way, if you are taking a side street detour, please be mindful that they may be narrow and have traffic coming both ways on blind corners. I’m just waiting for an accident on ours – several close calls and horns already.

TylerJ March 4, 2018 (11:26 pm)

I went through before they closed the street. A van with a trailer had somehow managed to get one of the trees on the south side of the street caught between it and the trailer. Hope the driver is ok…

Collin March 5, 2018 (9:20 am)

I called this accident in (I live across the street). The driver was able to get out of the vehicle on his own, so there didn’t appear to be any major injuries.

There are so many accidents on this stretch of road I’ve seriously lost count, so I hope that this investigation lends to safety improvements (maybe keep the speed limit at 30 like the rest of Roxbury). Until then, please slow down.

WSB March 5, 2018 (9:55 am)

Thanks. We didn’t hear about this until the TCI closure of the road and by that time we couldn’t even get to a spot where we could see the actual scene (we tried from a couple different spots) but I did just check with SFD and they transported a woman in her 40s with serious injuries. Though crash investigation info is not always available from SPD, I’m following up with them too to see if there was any other reason they called out TCI – TR

(Update: They tell me they’re posting something to SPD Blotter shortly. Depending on what that turns out to be, we’ll either update this story or post as a separate followup.)

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