NEWS
A6 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019
Man faces charges after driving wrong way on I-84
By PHIL WRIGHT
STAFF WRITER
Cody Vela of La Grande
was returning home Thurs-
day with his girlfriend and
their five children when he
saw the dark pickup bear-
ing down at them on Cab-
bage Hill.
“I was like, what the heck
is that? Was that guy in the
lane?” he recalled Monday.
“It takes you second.”
The 6-mile-long grade on
Interstate 84 east of Pendle-
ton spans three lanes along
the
climb
into the Blue
Mountains.
Vela and
his family
were head-
ing east in
their SUV
Field
in the far
left
pass-
ing lane, the same lane the
Toyota Tacoma occupied.
Vela estimated he was going
about 70 mph and the pickup
was zooming along at 80-85
mph.
“Luckily, we didn’t have
anybody to the right of us in
the second and third lanes,”
he said. “I told everybody
hang on.”
Vela crossed out of the
way and watched the Toyota
Tacoma zoom by and noted
the driver, a man, was the
lone occupant. Vela said he
was able to pull over about a
quarter-mile later and called
911. He said he overheard
another dispatcher talking to
another motorist about the
same wrong-way driver.
Brad Samuelson of
Pocatello, Idaho, may have
been the first to call 911
Courtesy photo
A dark-colored Toyota Tacoma truck travels the wrong way in the eastbound lane of I-84 near milepost 224 in this image
captured on Brad Samuelson’s dashcam Thursday afternoon near Pendleton.
about the wrong-way driver.
Samuelson, a pilot car
driver, said he left a manu-
factured home in The Dalles
that day was heading up
the big hill in the far right
lane when he came around
a blind corner near mile-
post 224 and saw the Toyota
pickup moving the opposite
direction in the far left lane.
“At first it didn’t even
register because he passed
me on my left,” Samuelson
said. “Then I went, wait a
second.”
He got on his CB radio
and asked other drivers if
he saw what he thought he
saw. Truckers confirmed it,
he said, and one claimed the
pickup driver had a bottle of
whisky to his lips.
Samuelson said he pulled
over as soon he as could and
called 911, then realized
how close a call this was.
“Just moments before
that, I was in lane 1,” he
said.
Samuelson’s
dash-
cam captured video of the
pickup at 3:36 p.m. going
west in the eastbound fast
Two unrelated arrests
have cattle connection
HERMISTON HERALD
The Umatilla County
Sheriff’s Office reported
making two arrests this
month with a connection to
cattle.
Deputy Trevor Limburg
was on patrol Sunday on
Powerline Road near Uma-
tilla when he observed a
truck hauling a trailer with
cattle inside.
The sheriff’s office
reported the truck and trailer
“was weaving heavily all
over the road across both
lanes.”
Limburg stopped the rig
and contacted the driver,
Alberto Frias Madrigal, 50,
of Hermiston.
He showed signs of alco-
hol consumption, the sher-
iff’s office reported, and
Limburg smelled the odor of
alcohol coming from him.
Madrigal also performed
“very poorly during the field
sobriety tests,” according to
the sheriff’s office, and Lim-
burg arrested him for driv-
ing under the influence of
intoxicants.
Madrigal’s family mem-
ber arrived to retrieve the
truck, trailer and cattle. Lim-
burg cited Madrigal for the
DUII and reckless driv-
ing and released him to the
relative.
The sheriff’s office also
reported a deputy nabbed a
man who was trying to steal
a cattle chute.
Deputy Cody Marcum on
Friday, Nov. 1, took a report
involving the attempted theft
of a hydraulic cattle chute
from a farm supply business
near Hermiston.
An employee arrived
at about 7 a.m. on Nov. 1
and found two men wear-
ing black ski masks in back
of the business who had
attached the large cattle
chute to a hitch on a small,
2008 Nissan Versa sedan.
The employee told the sus-
pects to stop, and they
unhooked the cattle chute
and sped off.
But the witness jot-
ted down the Washing-
ton license plate on the car
and gave a detailed descrip-
tion of events to the deputy.
The sheriff’s office checked
records and found the plate
number did not belong on
the Nissan, while the correct
license plate for the car was
an Oregon plate belonging
to Eric Nava, 24, of Herm-
iston. Nava also matched the
employee’s description of
one of the suspects.
A Hermiston police offi-
cer Monday stopped Nava’s
vehicle and contacted the
sheriff’s office. Deputy
Nathan Rankin arrived and
noticed the bogus Wash-
ington license plate inside
Nava’s vehicle. Nava gave
his consent to search the
vehicle, and Rankin found
a black ski mask along with
drug paraphernalia.
lane. He provided the video
to the East Oregonian,
which shared it on Face-
book and with other com-
pany newspapers.
State police trooper Jer-
emy Gunter responded to
the calls about the wrong-
way pickup and found it
near milepost 219, where
other drivers forced it to
stop after a minor collision.
The driver, Kenneth
Oscar Field, 50, of St.
George, Utah, appeared
impaired, according to
state police, and Gunter
arrested him on accusa-
tions of driving under the
influence of intoxicants and
booked him into the Uma-
tilla County Jail, Pendle-
ton, for the DUII, reckless
driving and four counts of
reckless endangering. Each
reckless endangering charge
relates to someone who had
to share the road with Field.
More charges could be
coming. Gunter contacted
the EO, which provided
him with Samuelson’s con-
tact information. Samuel-
son said he talked to state
police and handed over a
copy of the video.
Kristi Flanagan is glad
she started her drive Thurs-
day from Pendleton to her
home in Baker City as late
as she did.
Flanagan, whose daugh-
ter is a student at Blue
Mountain Community Col-
lege, said she was ascend-
ing the curves of Cab-
bage Hill when she saw the
pickup parked on the left
shoulder of the eastbound
lanes.
The pickup was nose-
to-nose with an Oregon
State Police car and point-
ing downhill. Flanagan said
she was curious because
the pickup seemed to have
been heading downhill
when it stopped.
It wasn’t until Friday
morning, when she saw the
Facebook post on the Baker
City Herald‘s page, that
Flanagan realized what had
happened not long before
she passed that pickup. Fla-
nagan said that’s quite likely
the lane she would have
been driving in — going the
opposite direction.
“There’s usually trucks
in the right two lanes,” she
said. “Thank goodness we
weren’t going up 20 minutes
earlier.”
Vela said he was glad state
police took the driver off the
road. Samuelson expressed
a similar sentiment.
“I’ve never encountered
anything like that,” he said,
“and I’m just glad no one
was hurt.”
———
Jayson Jacoby of the
Baker City Herald contrib-
uted to this story.
TRCI inmate dies in custody
been notified.
Kessler was in the facility’s hos-
pice program.
Kessler entered DOC custody
on Oct. 1, 1982, from Multnomah
County with an earliest release
date of Oct. 1, 2052.
TRCI is a multi-custody prison
in Umatilla that houses approxi-
mately 1,800 adults in custody.
HERMISTON HERALD
While Nava denied any
involvement in the crime,
according to the sheriff’s
office, he could not explain
the items in his vehicle.
Rankin booked Nava into
Kessler
An inmate died in custody
Thursday evening at Two Rivers
Correctional Institution in Uma-
tilla, according to the Oregon
Department of Corrections.
Stephen Kessler, 76, passed
away in the infirmary.
The Oregon State Police have
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