EVERETT — David Antle admitted that when he struck the jogger on the side of the road he knew he’d hit a person.
Antle stopped his car briefly but drove on, leaving the woman, a teacher, lying in a ditch with broken bones and a lacerated liver. Antle later hid his Dodge Journey until he could buy parts to replace the ones damaged in the collision.
Antle, 26, faces up to a year in jail when he’s sentenced next month. He pleaded guilty to hit-and-run injury accident. He admitted that he failed to remain at the scene of the Dec. 22, 2014, collision and failed to render reasonable aid to the jogger.
The woman, 53, was running northbound on 83rd Avenue NE in Marysville. It was dark, and she was jogging against traffic. She told police that she was running on the shoulder. She jogged on the fog line when she encountered a stretch of road without a shoulder. The woman saw an oncoming car and moved to an adjacent grassy area to wait for the car to pass, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Tobin Darrow wrote in court papers.
She told detectives the car swerved over the fog line and struck her. The force caused her upper body to land on the hood of the car before she was thrown backward into a shallow ditch, Darrow wrote. The woman remembered hitting her head on the hood.
The vehicle stopped about 200 feet away before driving on.
The jogger called 911 from her cellphone.
Marysville police found a dislodged passenger side mirror laying between the fog line and edge of the grass.
The jogger was rushed to Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, where she was diagnosed with three fractured ribs and a lacerated liver, Darrow wrote.
Police discovered that the passenger mirror likely originated from a Dodge Journey sports utility vehicle. They received an anonymous tip about six weeks later, identifying Antle as the driver. The tipster told police that Antle lived a few blocks from the crash scene.
Officers stopped by his house and found a Dodge Journey parked on the street. There was damage to the front passenger side and a dent to the hood.
Police questioned Antle, who first said he’d hit a deer near Stevens Pass. Officers pressed on and he admitted that he’d struck the jogger. He told police he didn’t see her and first assumed he’d hit a deer.
His wife told him that there had been emergency vehicles near their home that morning. He realized then that he’d struck a person, Antle said. Later he told police, “I pretty much figured that it was a person right off the bat … and then I was just kind of like well what was this person doing in the road.”
Antle kept his car at a friend’s house until he could order a new mirror.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley
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