Crime & Safety
Update: Wrong Way Driver Crash Leaves One Dead, Several Injured on Highway 101
All lanes of southbound U.S. Highway 101 were blocked by a major injury collision in South San Francisco early Saturday morning.
By Bay City News Service
Update 10/5/13 1:50 p.m.
A suspected drunken driver who drove the wrong way onto U.S. Highway 101 in South San Francisco early this morning is under arrest in the hospital after causing a crash that killed one person and seriously injured two more, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Around 3:50 a.m., an Infiniti sedan headed north onto southbound Highway 101 near Sierra Point Parkway and crashed into an SUV taxicab carrying a driver and two passengers, according to the CHP.
As the taxi traveled across the lanes of the roadway, a Mazda traveling south struck the taxi. CHP Officer Mike Ferguson said there were two passengers sitting in the rear of the taxi without seatbelts. One of the passengers was completely ejected from the cab and was killed at the scene. His name is being withheld pending notification of relatives.
The second passenger was taken to a hospital with major injuries.
Ferguson said the taxi driver, identified as 31-year-old Azmach Ejersa of Emeryville, was also hospitalized with major injuries.
The driver of the Infiniti, identified as 24-year-old Stanford resident Zachary Katz, was also hospitalized with major injuries, the officer said.
He is considered under arrest on suspicion of DUI and will be booked into county jail after he is medically cleared, according to Ferguson.
The driver of the Mazda was unharmed in the crash. The crash shut down all southbound lanes of the scene of the crash for more than three hours, according to the CHP.
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Original post 10/5/13 8:30 a.m.:
By Bay City News Service
Southbound U.S. Highway 101 in South San Francisco has reopened after a crash involving a wrong-way driver left one person dead and several more injured, a California Highway Patrol officer said.
Around 3:40 a.m., a driver headed north onto southbound Highway 101 near Sierra Point Parkway and reportedly crashed head-on into another car, according to the CHP.
Another car was also involved in the collision, and multiple people had to be extricated from their vehicles, according to the CHP.
CHP Officer James Evans said one person was killed in the crash and multiple others were injured. The crash shut down all southbound lanes of Highway 101 near the scene of the crash, and traffic was diverted onto Interstate Highway 280.
All lanes reopened a short time after 7 a.m., according to the CHP.
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