ARLINGTON – A Tulalip grandmother died and her grandson and his pregnant wife were injured Thursday in a head-on crash that closed Highway 530 for an hour and a half.
Cassandra Smathers, 62, and her passengers were driving west, toward I-5, about 6 p.m. in a Chevrolet Venture minivan. Witnesses said the van swerved into oncoming traffic, Washington State Patrol trooper Keith Leary said.
The passengers in the van told troopers that Smathers swerved to avoid colliding with traffic that had stopped to turn left onto Smokey Point Boulevard, Leary said.
The van hit a 2003 Toyota Camry driven by a 48-year-old Arlington woman.
People driving by stopped and frantically tried to help the people trapped in the vehicles, said Pearl Britton, who drove by the accident seconds after it happened.
“It was a little scary just going by it because it looked very, very serious,” she said. “Smoke was coming out of both the van and the car.”
Smathers died at the scene, before she could be removed from the wreckage.
Paramedics and firefighters from Snohomish County Fire District 19 had to cut a door off the other car in order to rescue the driver.
The woman and the passengers in the van – Smathers’ grandson, Eric Day, 27, and his wife, Kori Young, 30, both of Tulalip – were taken to local hospitals in ambulances. Young is six months pregnant, Leary said.
The extent of their injuries was unknown Thursday night.
Neither drugs nor alcohol were involved in the crash, Leary said.
Mike Zingmark was working nearby in his uncle’s field when the crash occurred.
“All the sudden, Boom!” he said. “All the sudden traffic got bad.”
Highway 530 was completely closed until 7:30 p.m., when troopers opened the shoulder to one-way traffic.
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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