Separate Crashes in Juanita and Downtown Kirkland Injure Two Drivers

Kirkland fire and aid crews responded to two separate crashes in Kirkland Thursday evening that resulted in severe injuries to two adult male drivers.

The first was a rollover crash in north Juanita at the intersection of 100th Avenue and NE 137th, near the Safeway store complex, at about 6:30 p.m. About a half-hour later, the driver of a motorcycle ran into a car on Central Way in downtown Kirkland, between Third and Fourth streets.

Both drivers were taken by aide cars to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with potentially life-threatening injuries, Kirkland Fire Department Acting Battalion Chief  Pat Hund said Friday morning.

In the Juanita crash, the driver was alone in an SUV when he lost control. The car rolled and ended up upside down in a gas station after apparently crashing into a traffic light signal box.

“We believe the driver had some medical emergency prior to the accident,” said Hund. “He was unconscious when we arrived and was extricated very soon, within five minutes.”

It appears the driver was southbound on 100th Avenue before the crash. As fire and aide crews were wrapping up that scene, a call came in for the motorcycle crash downtown.

It appears the motorcycle was traveling along Central and swerved to avoid a stopped car, then “slammed into the rear-end of another car,” Hund said.

Traffic was disrupted to varying extents at both scenes, with reports indicating a portion of Central Way blocked and police directing traffic on 100th Avenue.

A comment on the Kirkland Patch Facebook page indicated that a bystander at the gas station on 100th, a young man trained as a lifeguard, rushed to the driver’s aid immediately after the crash.

Kirkland Patch will update this story as more details become available.