Steven Gorbet doesn’t know why he decided to try to rescue an apparently unconscious man stuck in a vehicle that veered off Interstate 5 on Tuesday night, hitting a tree and catching fire. Gorbet simply jumped into action.
“I don’t know,” Gorbet said in a phone interview. “I just kind of did it.”
The Battle Ground resident was southbound on the freeway shortly before midnight, headed home from a hunting trip in the Leavenworth area, when he noticed what he thought was a small brush fire. It turned out an SUV had crashed into a tree and was burning from its engine. The driver of the vehicle died.
The Washington State Patrol said that the unidentified driver behind the wheel of an SUV was southbound on I-5 at Milepost 10 in the center lane when it struck the rear right of a Nissan Versa sedan. It left the roadway to the right, hit a tree in a ditch and caught fire, troopers said.
The driver of the Nissan was uninjured.
Two Fire District 6 fire engines were dispatched to the crash scene, spokesman Dave Schmitke said.