The Forest Lake area was the site of several car crashes over the weekend.
Hugo fatal
The most serious incident was a head-on crash in Hugo, near the intersection of U.S. Highway 61 and 159th Street North around 10 p.m. on June 21. A Dodge Stratus driven by Mary Patterson, 35, of Center City, was headed north on 61, and Mcklane Sanders, 18, of Lexington, was driving a Ford Ranger south on the road. The vehicles collided, totaling both and killing Patterson. Sanders received non-life threatening injuries, and a passenger in his truck was unhurt. The State Patrol has not released how the accident occurred.
Highway 97
There were also two crashes on State Highway 97 in Forest Lake. The first one occurred shortly before 9:30 p.m. on June 18, and the second took place shortly before 7 p.m. on June 19. Both crashes occurred in roughly the same area of the highway, near intersections with Healy and Heath avenues. The Forest Lake Times requested an official report from multiple law enforcement agencies on these crashes before press time, and none was provided. However, it appears that one person was hospitalized after the one-car crash on June 18.
For the June 19 crash, police reports indicate that the four-car accident occurred when Marthe Niles Hanson, 80, of White Bear Lake, made a quick stop behind a truck driven by Timothy Gregory Koshiol, 55, of Forest Lake, who was eastbound on the road and waiting to turn left onto Healy Avenue. When Hanson made his stop, his truck was reportedly struck from behind by a vehicle driven by Matthew Emory Hanson, 41, of Midland, Texas. Marthe Hanson’s truck was pushed in the collision, striking the rear of Koshiol’s truck and pushing him into the westbound traffic lane, where his truck was hit by a vehicle driven by Valerie Nickoliavich Kirdan, 30, of Scandia.
Marthe Hanson was hospitalized with unknown injuries, and ambulance personnel inspected Kirdan and one of Matthew Hanson’s passengers at the scene.
Interstate 35
A rollover accident also occurred in the 5 p.m. hour June 20 on Interstate Highway 35, just north of Wyoming. According to the Minnesota State Patrol, a vehicle driven by Todd Anthony Theyson, 46, of Buffalo, Minn. was headed northbound on the road when he lost control and drove the vehicle into the ditch. He suffered minor injuries but left the scene under his own power.