DISCOVERY BAY – A medical helicopter used U.S. Highway 10, near its intersection with the turn to Discovery Bay Railroad Park, as a launch pad Tuesday afternoon to take a Port Townsend woman injured in a head-on collision a Seattle hospital.
Jean Suzette Baker, 58 – who suffered multiple bone fractures, according to State Patrol Trooper Rick Ward – remained in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center on Tuesday evening.
John David Malinosky, 44, of Bellingham, the driver of the other vehicle, was uninjured but for sore hands, said Ward.
Neither vehicle carried passengers.
Traffic was backed up for miles in both directions of Highway 101 after the wreck, and the highway was narrowed to one lane until about 5 p.m.
At about 2:20 p.m., the ground in the Discovery Bay area was white with pebble-sized pieces of hail that had fallen earlier that day.
Ward said a line of cars had stopped in the southbound lane, with the lead car waiting for a clearing in the northbound lane to turn left into the Discovery Bay Railroad Park, a group of shops in railroad cars.
Malinosky was driving a white 2006 Ford F-150 that was pulling a box trailer behind it in the southbound lane.
He knew he would be unable to stop in time to avoid crashing into the back of the cars stopped for the left turn, said Ward.
While maneuvering to avoid hitting the stopped cars, Malinosky swerved into the northbound lane, and hit Baker’s white 1997 Chevrolet Geo head-on.
Both vehicles came to a rest in the northbound lane.
