Woman Crashes Head-On Into Fiance’s Car Couple, Infant Daughter All Hospitalized After Fluke

A bizarre two-car wreck that left a bride-to-be, her fiance and their infant daughter hospitalized has rattled residents of two adjacent North Idaho towns.

“It was a crazy accident. A fluke,” said Oldtown, Idaho, resident Louise Ells. “How does something like this happen to one family?”

Her grandson, Benjamin Ells, was seriously injured late Thursday when his Toyota Camry was struck by another car as he drove west along a rural highway between Oldtown and Priest River.

The other driver: his fiancee, 19-year-old Amanda Jones, of Priest River.

Idaho State Police said Jones was eastbound on Old Priest River Road about 4:30 p.m. with the couple’s infant daughter, Ski, in the car.

Witnesses told police that Jones tried to pass a truck around a curve. Ells, meanwhile, was headed west when Jones suddenly appeared in his lane.

“He didn’t know who it was,” Louise Ells said. “He just tried to get out of the way.”

Both drivers slammed on their brakes and swerved, but turned in the same direction. They skidded and then collided head-on.

Ells, 20, eventually recognized the car, police said, and asked witnesses if it had a temporary license sticker in the window.

“When they said yes, he said ‘I think that’s my wife,”’ said Idaho State Police Cpl. Teresa Huckabay.

Later, at the hospital, relatives explained that the pair were in fact engaged.

Ells suffered a broken leg, ribs and arm and injured his hip, his grandmother said. He was listed in stable condition at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane Friday.

Jones suffered more serious internal injuries and was listed in critical condition in the same hospital’s intensive care unit.

The baby also remained in ICU late Friday, but family members said she appeared to be recovering from minor bruises. She was riding in a restraining seat.

“We’re devastated,” Ells said. “Everyone’s in shock.”

Word of the accident spread quickly Friday among the 2,500 residents who live in the two communities along the Idaho-Washington border.

“It’s terrible and kind of weird,” said Lance Clark, who graduated from high school with Jones in 1995.

“I hope they’re OK.”

The accident reminded Clark’s uncle, Randy Butler, of the time he smashed into his own girlfriend’s car nearly 27 years ago.

After an argument, the couple sped off in the same direction in separate cars along Highway 2 - across the river from the site of Thursday’s accident. Butler tried to pass her just as she turned left for a U-turn.

“It was a dumb accident and nobody was hurt,” he said.

The couple soon was engaged and have now been married 25 years.

Police on Friday said it’s unclear where Jones or Ells had been headed, but said it was unlikely the wreck was anything more than a coincidence.

“I worked Los Angeles 21 years and have been here for eight and I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Sgt. Leroy Rasmussen, with Priest River’s three-man police department.

Cpl. Huckabay, with ISP, said the accident “is probably one I will always remember.” , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Head-on collision