In our Monday morning traffic-and-weather coverage, we had updates on a multiple-vehicle crash on the eastbound West Seattle Bridge. We followed up with SPD to ask for more inforation on the circumstances, and got this summary as the reply:

On Jan. 19 at about 9:30 a.m., patrol officers responded to a vehicle collision on the West Seattle Bridge.

The suspected impaired driver attempted to flee the scene, yet two bystanders stopped him and were holding onto him, preventing him from leaving the area of the crash. Police arrived and detained the suspect, a 39-year-old man. Officers determined that the suspect collided into two vehicles. Witnesses believed that the suspect’s “high rate-of-speed” was a factor in the collision, according to the police report. Police also impound the suspect’s vehicle, which sustained significant damage. Believing the suspect to be impaired, police arrested him for Driving Under the Influence (DUI) following their on-scene investigation.

Officers transported the suspect to the Southwest Precinct for processing. At the precinct, an SPD Drug Recognition Expert evaluated the suspect and determined that he was impaired. Police transported the suspect to Harborview Medical Center (HMC) while they applied for a DUI search warrant for blood. A judge approved the warrant, and a nurse drew the blood; officers collected it as evidence. The suspect required additional medical treatment at HMC, and officers released him from custody at the hospital.

The Seattle Police Department is grateful that nobody was seriously injured in the collision. And we thank our community members for helping our officers get an impaired driver off the road.