MARYSVILLE – A man who was supposed to have a device in his car to prevent drunken driving was killed in a fiery wrong-way crash on southbound I-5 Monday.
Timothy Magnett, 36, of Mount Vernon was driving the wrong direction on southbound I-5 about 12:45 a.m. when he crashed head-on into a tractor-trailer in the center lane near the Highway 529 exit, according to the State Patrol.
Kevin Nortz / The Herald
Magnett was thrown from his Suzuki Sidekick and died at the scene.
The crash sparked a massive fire in the tractor-trailer, which was loaded with cardboard. Firefighters battled the blaze for almost six hours.
A transportation crew brought in heavy equipment to pull apart the cardboard bales to make sure the fire was completely extinguished, said Marysville Fire District spokesman Nathan Trauernicht.
“One of our captains likened it to seeing an airplane crash,” Trauernicht said. “The debris field was spread all over.”
The semi-truck driver, Jorge Atencio of Chilliwack, B.C., suffered minor injuries. No one else was injured.
Emergency dispatchers received a call just before the accident that a sport utility vehicle was headed the wrong way on southbound Highway 529. It wasn’t clear where Magnett entered the highway.
“Chances are that he came all the way from Everett,” State Patrol trooper Lance Ramsay said.
Investigators didn’t know Monday why Magnett was driving the wrong direction or if he was driving drunk.
“I’ve been to enough of these with people going the wrong way that there’s a good chance alcohol was involved,” Ramsay said.
Magnett was supposed to have an ignition interlock device on his vehicle, Ramsay said. The device requires a driver to test for alcohol on his or her breath before starting a vehicle. Ramsay didn’t know if there was an operating device in Magnett’s vehicle prior to the crash.
Magnett has three drunken- driving convictions in Snohomish County district courts, and records show a long history of other offenses. Among them, he was convicted at least four times of not having a required ignition interlock device. Other convictions include driving with a suspended license, possession of marijuana and assault.
I-5 was closed for several hours while the wreckage was removed from the road. All lanes of the freeway were reopened about 9:30 a.m., although the southbound Highway 529 offramp was still shut several hours later.
Many drivers caught in the traffic tried to improvise via alternate routes, but those quickly clogged, too, and stayed jammed-up well after rush hour.
By 9:15 a.m., traffic was backed up southbound on Highway 9 as far as 172nd Street NE. Many cars turned right on 172nd and headed a few miles west over to 67th Avenue NE, which runs parallel to Highway 9. Traffic on 67th was smoother, until 108th Street NE, where the long line of taillights began.
West of I-5 wasn’t much better. Drivers veered off the freeway at a few exits between Lakewood and Tulalip, trying to weave through back roads on the Tulalip Reservation.
On Marine Drive, traffic came to a full stop around 8 a.m. By 10 a.m. cars were still backed up on 27th Avenue NE from Marine Drive all the way to 88th Street NE.
Several other accidents were reported during the morning commute near the initial accident scene, including rollover crashes on Highway 9 and southbound I-5.
Monday was the second fatal crash in a week on the freeway in the Marysville area. A family of three was killed May 30 when a pickup hauling a fifth-wheel travel trailer crossed the median and hit the family’s car head-on.
An Oak Harbor man was killed in a wrong-way crash on I-5 in Marysville in March 2004. Laurence Clayton crashed head-on into a semi-truck while driving the wrong way in the southbound lanes just north of the 116th Street NE.
Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.
Reporters Jim Haley and Scott Morris contributed to this story.
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