In brief: Mother, baby injured slightly in hit-and-run

A mother and her baby escaped serious injury Saturday afternoon in a hit-and-run crash at Nora Avenue and Cedar Street in northwest Spokane.

A pickup failed to yield to their car at the intersection, and when the two collided, the pickup skidded down the street and flipped over on its side, said Spokane police Cpl. Jon Strickland.

The driver and a passenger in the truck fled the scene, Strickland said.

They may have been picked up down the street by someone in another vehicle.

“They just cared about themselves. They didn’t even care to see if the baby was injured,” said Strickland of an infant riding in the other vehicle.

Just minutes after the crash, the baby was laughing at a Spokane firefighter rocking her car seat.

The baby’s mother was walking around but suffered some cuts and other injuries from the airbag’s deployment, said Strickland.

Brandi Bumgardener was outside her home just down the street, holding a yard sale when the crash occurred.

Bumgardener said the pickup’s driver walked by saying he was going to get his girlfriend.

That driver never returned to the crash scene, and Spokane police were looking for him and his passenger Saturday night.

–Amy Cannata

Post Falls

Man walking on I-90 hit by car, hospitalized

A Post Falls man was hospitalized early Saturday morning after being hit by a car as he walked on Interstate 90.

Reginald R. Moore, 31, was walking at about 3 a.m. Saturday in the left eastbound lane of Interstate 90 about five miles east of the Washington state border when he was hit by an Isuzu Rodeo.

Idaho State Police aren’t certain why Moore was walking on the freeway but planned to interview him Saturday evening about the crash.

The driver of the Isuzu, Jacob U. Blair, 28, of Spokane, was not injured in the crash and has not been charged with a crime or ticketed.

Police are also investigating whether two other vehicles hit Moore on the freeway.

– Amy Cannata

RICHLAND

Small fire prompts alert at nuclear plant

A small fire prompted authorities to declare an alert Saturday at the Columbia Generating Station, the only commercial nuclear power plant in Washington.

No radioactivity was released, and the plant on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington remained operating.

The alert was declared at 1:44 p.m. when the plant’s control room received an alert from a sensor of an electrical fire in a building adjacent to the reactor building, said Energy Northwest, which operates the plant.

The fire was in a backup transformer.

The plant’s fire brigade and the Hanford Fire Department responded, although the fire was quickly put out by an equipment operator using a fire extinguisher, Energy Northwest spokesman Gary Miller said.

The alert was lifted at 5:21 p.m.

No injuries were reported, and an investigation into the cause of the fire could take several days, Miller said.

– Associated Press