Driver expected to face OWI charge after hitting hayride

ALLEGAN, Mich. (WOOD) — A driver was arrested for suspected drunken driving after her SUV hit a hayride south of Allegan Saturday, authorities say.

A preliminary breath test showed the driver had a blood alcohol content level of .12, Allegan County Sheriff’s Office Capt. John Paul Damveld told reporters Monday. Michigan’s legal limit to drive is .08.

“She … first told the deputies that she was the passenger in the car. Then about an hour into the investigation, she admitted that she was the driver and the operator of that vehicle,” Damveld said.

The driver is expected to be charged with operating while intoxicated causing serious injury, Damveld said, and additional charges could be added after the county prosecutor finishes reviewing the case. The driver’s name was not released but Damveld said she is a 44-year-old woman from Allegan.

The crash happened around dusk Saturday at 7:30 p.m. on M-40 near 110th Avenue in Trowbridge Township.

“The tractor itself had lights on it. There were no lights on the hay trailer, but there was a large slow moving reflective orange triangle on the back of it,” Damveld said.

He said the tractor was headed south and was about to turn left when the SUV, also headed south, hit the rear of the hay wagon. A News 8 crew at the scene saw the trailer on its side, part of its metal siding bent inward and a section of the wooden bed broken, and an SUV with the front smashed in.

There were a total of nine people in the wagon in addition to the person driving the tractor and three people in the SUV. No children were involved. Four people from the wagon and an SUV passenger were hospitalized, Damveld said.

“You can picture it in your head what the scene would probably look like. It looked like chaos,” he said.

A mother to some of the people on the hayride, who asked that her name not be used, called the scene “horrific” and “like a nightmare.” In a written statement to News 8, she described seeing glass “everywhere” and blood on the road.

“I just remember praying and when almost all of the ambulances were full, crying in my son in law’s arms,” she wrote in part. “Now we just need time to heal, and God will help with that. The kids said they could feel the prayers of all the people over them. God showed up at a terrible time and gave us a miraculous night!”

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