Alcohol and speed suspected in Saturday’s fatal crash with parked cars on Yew Street Road
Alcohol is suspected to have been involved in a fatal accident that occurred early Saturday, May 25, in just south of Bellingham, according to the Washington State Patrol.
Joshua M. Oudman, a 25-year-old from Sedro-Woolley, died at the scene after the 2011 Dodge Ram 2500 he was driving crashed into two unoccupied vehicles and then struck a tree in the 2300 block of Yew Street Road, according to the State Patrol release on the incident.
Oudman’s Dodge was traveling at a high rate of speed at approximately 2:25 a.m., according to the report, when he failed to negotiate a slight curve in the road. The Dodge struck a 1997 Saturn SL1 and a 2009 Honda Fit before hitting the tree.
The Honda Fit was pushed into a 1987 Toyota pickup and a 1989 Toyota pickup that also were parked and unoccupied at the scene.
No other injuries were listed in the report, which cited speed and alcohol as the causes of the crash.
Oudman’s death is the second on Whatcom County roadways in less than a week, as a 20-year-old Bellingham woman was killed in a single-vehicle motorcycle accident Sunday afternoon along Mosquito Lake Road.
According to the Washington State Department of Transportation crash portal, the past week’s deaths are the county’s third and fourth traffic fatalities of 2019, though that data did not include a bicyclist that was hit and killed by an Amtrak train March 26 along F Street in Bellingham or a fatal two-car crash May 3 at the Peace Arch Border Crossing.
Location of crash corrected May 25, 2019.
This story was originally published May 25, 2019 at 8:49 AM.
