DAYTON, Ohio – A suspected drunken driver going the wrong way on an Ohio interstate slammed head-on into an SUV, killing himself and four people inside the other vehicle early Saturday, police said.
Police said the driver who caused the crash on Interstate 75 in downtown Dayton also may have been arrested on a DUI charge in the last few days, the Dayton Daily News reported.
Friends of those inside the SUV told investigators they were in another vehicle and had to swerve to avoid the wrong-way driver, said police Sgt. Matthew Beavers.
A truck driver, Chris Dues of Springfield, Kentucky, said he came upon the wreckage in a construction zone about a minute or two after the crash around 3 a.m.
"It was horrific," he told the Daily News. "There was no front end on either of the vehicles. There was an alternator 10 feet from the car, just sitting out in the road. It was crazy."
Dues said the victims in the SUV, which flipped onto its roof and landed on the other car, were trapped inside.
Three men and one woman were in the SUV, said Beavers, who estimated that the victims were in their late teens or early 20s. The driver of the car was in his 60s, he said.
All five were pronounced dead at the scene.
The crash shut down northbound Interstate 75 for about five hours.
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