State police have arrested a Waterbury man who is accused of driving the wrong way on Interstate 84 in East Hartford while impaired and causing a three-vehicle crash on Wednesday night.
Police also said he did not have a license and his vehicle was not registered or insured.
State troopers responded to the I-84 East exit 56 off-ramp in East Hartford just after 9 p.m. Thursday to investigate reports of a wrong-way crash. State police said the wrong-way detection system posted on the exit 56 off-ramp had activated at 9:01 p.m., just one minute before the crash.
Troopers found one of the three vehicles facing the wrong way on the exit 56 off-ramp, state police said, and they determined that that vehicle had collided head-on with another vehicle that was taking the exit ramp, which caused a sideswipe collision with a third vehicle on the ramp right after the initial crash.
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The driver who was going the wrong way didn’t have a valid driver’s license and was in an unregistered, uninsured vehicle that had a license plate that belonged to another vehicle, according to state police.
Police said he ran from the scene.
So, state police contacted East Hartford Police to set up a perimeter off the highway.
A state police K9 unit also responded to the scene to conduct a track and found the suspect in the woods in tall grass next to the exit ramp, state police said.
The 29-year-old Waterbury man had a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage and he also had injuries from the crash, according to state police. They said it didn’t appear that he has been wearing a seatbelt when the crash happened.
EMS crews evaluated him at the scene.
Police said he failed field sobriety tests, police said.
The driver in the crash that the suspect hit head-on had minor injuries and was taken to a hospital for treatment, police said.
The driver in the vehicle that was involved in the sideswipe crash reported no injuries.
The suspect was charged with the operation of a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol/drugs, evading responsibility with injury, driving the wrong way on a divided highway, operating without minimum insurance, operating an unregistered motor vehicle, operating without a license, misuse of a registration plate, reckless driving, failure to wear a seatbelt, reckless endangerment in the first degree and interfering with an officer/resisting.
He was held on a $50,000 bond.
