I-80 chase near Truckee ends with 1 death, 2 hurt

By AP

A man driving a BMW led California Highway Patrol officers on a wild high-speed chase on Interstate 80 Monday afternoon, injuring two roadside workers as the car went airborne and landed upside down.

The pursuit began about 1:40pm when an officer tried to pull the driver over for reckless driving on eastbound I-80 near Dutch Flat, in the Sierra Nevada, CHP Officer Pete Mann said.

The driver of the 1989 BMW accelerated instead. Speeds climbed to more than 100 mph during the chase, which spanned more than 50 miles over the crest of the Sierra and back.

The driver left the interstate and changed directions near Truckee, heading westbound on I-80. After crossing back over Donner Summit, the driver entered a lane closed by construction cones near the Soda Springs-Norden exit and lost control of the vehicle as he tried to turn around.

The BMW went airborne and struck two California Conservation Corps workers.

“As it was actually flipping through the air, it actually hit them as they were trying to run away,” Mann said.

A female worker suffered what he described as a “moderate head injury” and was taken by helicopter to a Reno hospital. A male colleague was treated for shoulder pain at the scene of the crash.

I-80 was closed between Soda Springs and Kingvale while authorities investigated Monday evening. It has sense reopened.

The CHP attempted to pull the driver over after receiving reports of a BMW driving erratically, but Mann said officers do not know why he refused to stop. The driver’s name was not released pending notification of next of kin.

Westbound Interstate 80 is closed because of a fatal accident at Castle Peak.

Neither Caltrans nor the California Highway Patrol is estimating when the road will reopen.

Traffic is being diverted off I-80 at Soda Springs to Old Highway 40 to Kingvale and then back onto I-80.

The incident began about 2:10pm with a chase with speeds hitting 100 mph.

The driver crashed in the Truckee area. The suspect is dead and A California Conservation Corps employee injured. That person is receiving care for non-life threatening injuries at Renown Medical Center in Reno.

No names are being released nor why the suspect was originally wanted.