BEAVER — Two LaPush residents were hurt in a one-car rollover on Thursday that blocked the highway for about a half-hour until a State Patrol trooper pushed the car out of one lane.
Both the driver of the 2002 Ford ZX, Jacqualine Smith, 51, and Bert Black, 65, complained of sore necks after the 5 p.m. wreck.
Both were taken to the Forks Community Hospital. A spokesperson declined to provide information about their conditions.
The highway was blocked in both directions until a trooper used his car to push the wrecked Ford out of a lane of the highway, the State Patrol said.
Black is a former Quileute Tribal Council vice president and current chairman of the Housing Authority Board.
The State Patrol gave this account of the wreck:
Smith was driving south on U.S. Highway 101 near Lake Pleasant, about five miles north of Forks, when she fell asleep and drove off the right side of the road, hitting the ditch.
She then overcorrected, driving into the ditch on the left side. The car overturned and stopped upside down.
Both people were wearing seat belts, and neither drugs nor alcohol are considered factors in the crash.
The car was completely destroyed, said the State Patrol, which said the cause of the wreck was fatigue.
