DUNGENESS — Investigators had no answers late Thursday as to why a Sequim woman’s van had raced over a 30-foot bluff into the shallows of Dungeness Bay that morning in a fatal crash.
Barbara Neil, 66, was pronounced dead at Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles after she sustained serious injuries, including to the head, in the 9:20 a.m. crash.
She had been pulled, badly hurt but alive, from the wreckage of her 1993 Chevrolet van that while traveling north on Cays Road, shot more than 300 feet over the bluff and crashed in about three feet of water.
“She was going pretty fast. She launched herself about 100 yards into the water without hitting,” said Clallam County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Yarnes.
No skid marks marked Cays Road where the van left the road, State Patrol Trooper Keith Nestor acknowledged, indicating that the brakes had not been applied.
The cause of the wreck remained under investigation Thursday.
Ken Phillips, who lives at 220 Marine Drive, called in a report of the crash, saying he saw a “humongous” splash.
“I thought at first someone had used dynamite,” he said.
Steve Anderson, a plumber working at the Dungeness Barn-House bed-and-breakfast at the corner of Cays Road and Marine Drive near the crash scene said, “I heard it barreling down the road.”
Turning toward the waterfront, Anderson said he heard a sound like a backfire.
“We saw a spray of water come up over the cliff” from the bay, he said.
The Cays and Thornton roads leading to Marine Drive on Dungeness Bay were blocked off Thursday so that sheriff’s office deputies and State Patrol troopers could conduct an investigation and the wreckage could be pulled up the cliff and towed.
Yarnes said the Sheriff’s Office called in a State Patrol trooper and crash technician to determine the rate of speed the car was traveling when it plunged off the bluff.
The rescue of the injured woman entailed both a boat and a helicopter.
Battling a rising tide, Clallam County Fire District No. 3 personnel rowed a small boat to the swamped van in the bay and used a tow line to bring Neil to land.
District 3 paramedics carried her up stairs at the bluff and across Marine Drive to a waiting Coast Guard MCH-65 Dolphin helicopter.
The crew from Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles had landed in a grassy field off Marine Drive near Dungeness Bay to take Neil to OMC.
Neil was not wearing a seat belt, investigators said.
Phillips said it was the second such crash in recent years off Marine Drive into the bay.
His wife, Kris, said that four years ago, a motorist shot off the bluff near Thornton Road and Marine Drive and their sons had helped in the rescue.
Speeding along Marine Drive has been a problem, she said, with some motorists traveling upward of 45 miles per hour on the narrow bluff-side road.
“We would probably like to push for some speed tables out here,” she said, referring to the wide speed-bump-like options for slowing traffic.
“This lady had to be going in excess of 60 mph to go that far out in the bay,” Kris Phillips said.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.