2 Dead After Overnight Head-On Crash in Oakdale
Authorities say two people are dead, one person suffered life-threatening injuries and a fourth had minor injuries after a wrong-way driver struck another car head-on in Oakdale early Thursday morning.
Emergency crews were called to the scene around 2:24 a.m. Thursday after multiple 911 callers reported a Toyota Corolla traveling southbound in the northbound lanes of I-694 in Oakdale.
MnDOT traffic cameras captured the wrong-way driver traveling southbound before crashing head-on into a Pontiac Vibe south of Stillwater Boulevard.
TWITTER: Our original thread on the crash
The State Patrol says the drivers of both vehicles died at the scene, while a 3-year-old girl, a passenger of the Pontiac, suffered life-threatening injuries and was transported to Regions Hospital in Saint Paul. A driver of a third vehicle that was indirectly hit suffered minor injuries.
Radio traffic indicated that the driver of the Pontiac, Alexander John Ripka, 32, from Rice, was ejected from his vehicle, while the driver of the Corolla, William Alexander Flores-Zamora, 28, from Saint Paul, was trapped inside and died shortly after being removed from the vehicle.
According to the State Patrol, Ripka was not wearing a seat belt. The incident report says it’s unknown if alcohol played a factor in the crash at this time.
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