MARYSVILLE — A baby girl survived a high-speed rollover crash Monday morning in Marysville, when a Jeep slammed through mailboxes, toppled concrete posts and slid on its roof into a tree.
Neighbors said the girl’s father, 44, crawled from the upside-down Jeep and ran to a nearby house after the crash on a dead-end road at 8:22 a.m. in the 8500 block of 59th Avenue NE, according to police. He abandoned the girl in her car seat for a matter of minutes, as neighbors worked to rescue her from the wreckage, police said.
The father didn’t call 911. The only call came from a neighbor.
The driver suffered injuries to his head and shoulder. The girl had no obvious visible wounds. Firefighters rushed her by ambulance to a local hospital, “code red,” out of concern that she may have had life-threatening injuries. Hours later police announced she’d been released from the hospital.
The child is 7 months old.
Police pieced together the events of the morning. Officers believe the father had driven to Walmart to buy baby formula. Once he returned to his neighborhood near Allen Creek, he lost control of the Jeep.
Investigators suspect the man was speeding. Tires left the road, and the vehicle took out two posts and four mailboxes en route to a tree near the man’s house. No other vehicles or people were struck.
Police found no evidence to suggest the father had been impaired by drugs or alcohol. He gave no explanation for why he ran into the house, said Cmdr. Mark Thomas of Marysville police.
In a diaper bag in the overturned Jeep, police found a loaded pistol.
Child Protective Services took the girl into custody. The man was still being treated at the hospital at the time, Thomas said. Police planned to arrest him for investigation of charges related to the crash plus abandonment of the child and the loaded gun.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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