WSP: Wrong-way driver on I-5 reaches speeds of 100 mph

A 60-year-old woman was arrested on accusations of driving under the influence early Wednesday morning after witnesses and police said they saw her driving the wrong way on Interstate 5 at speeds reaching 100 mph.

No one was hurt in the incident, which played out for more than 17 miles as the driver headed north in the southbound lanes of I-5 from Tumwater to near Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

“Oh no; hopefully this person won’t hit somebody,” is what Jenny Hayward said she was thinking when she and her husband spotted the driver at about 2 a.m. The couple, along with several other drivers, called 911.

911 tapes obtained by KIRO 7 revealed some of what was relayed to emergency dispatchers.

“He’s going north in the southbound lanes,” one man said. “They were going really fast.”

Hayward and her husband, who were heading north in the proper northbound lanes, flashed their headlights at southbound drivers to try to warn them.

“It was very scary,” Hayward said.

Troopers caught up to the wrong-way driver, but that didn’t help Jenny Ames, who was headed southbound.

“He almost hit me head-on. Scared the **** out of me,” Ames said. “I didn’t even realize it was on my side of the road until it almost hit me. I almost had a heart attack.”

Troopers with the Washington State Patrol said they couldn’t believe how fast the wrong-way driver was going.

“Speeds almost a hundred miles an hour – actually, we’re a hundred miles an hour now,” a trooper was heard telling a 911 dispatcher.

Finally, after 17 miles, the 60-year-old woman, who police said was intoxicated, pulled over. Troopers and witnesses were stunned no one was killed.

“We’re dealing with an individual that really had no idea what was going on,” Trooper Guy Gill said. “I don’t think she had a clue what was happening, and she made a comment that she didn’t even know she was on I-5.”

Gill said the woman was arrested on charges of DUI and could also face charges of reckless endangerment.

“It’s definitely a miracle nobody was hurt,” Hayward said.

KIRO 7 South Sound Bureau Chief Richard Thompson called the woman’s home later Wednesday, but a man who answered said she had no comment.