DUI Suspect Arrested After Woman Struck, Killed In Early Morning Crash On I-5 In National City

By City News Service, Times of San Diego

October 6, 2023

A predawn South Bay freeway pileup left a motorist dead Thursday and a DUI suspect under arrest.

The fatal chain-reaction crash occurred on the southbound side of Interstate 5 in National City shortly after 2:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The initial collision, just north of state Route 54, involved three cars, a Nissan Frontier, Honda Accord and Jeep Liberty. The driver of the Frontier fled on foot, CHP public-affairs Officer Salvador Castro said.

Moments later, another Jeep, a Patriot, plowed into the disabled Accord, and the impact hurled a woman who had been driving it onto the roadway, Castro said. Paramedics took her and the driver of the Patriot to a trauma center; doctors pronounced the woman dead.

Authorities withheld her identity pending family notification.

The male driver, 37, of the Patriot, an Imperial Beach resident, was arrested at the hospital on suspicion of DUI.

No other injuries were reported in the pileup, which left lanes blocked on the freeway for about three hours.

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