By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
A 30-year-old Bellevue man died last night following a single-car collision on the Fourth of July weekend outside Toledo when he sustained massive head injuries, the state patrol reported this morning.
Teggina Matha Abhay, 30, was a passenger in a small car that left the road about five miles east of Toledo went down a steep embankment and struck a tree next to the highway, according to responders.
The 24-year-old driver and a 27-year-old woman in the backseat walked out of the vehicle but firefighters had to cut apart the 2010 Ford Fusion to remove the front seat passenger, responders reported.
It happened about 7:15 a.m. on July 3, in the curves of state Route 505 beyond Dowling Road – a popular route to Mount St. Helens. The driver had moved to the right when he saw an oncoming truck and went off the road, according to the Washington State Patrol.
Abhay was flown by helicopter to Southwest Washington Medical Center in Vancouver, Wash. The survivors, Avinash Rajopala Setty, 24, and Leelavathy Mandya Nagaraja, 27, also from Bellevue, received cuts and scrapes in the accident, according to the state patrol. The car was totaled.
The cause of the crash was not the oncoming truck, the state patrol reported this morning. The driver was cited for “wheels off the roadway”, the patrol reported.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter