WATCH: Wrong-Way Driver Killed In Fiery Highway 99 Collision
TURLOCK (CBS13) – A Highway 99 wrong-way driver was killed when he hit an oncoming vehicle head-on Tuesday night in Turlock, and cell phone video captured the fiery collision.
Cell phone video posted by the YouTube account Stack Bandz shows the driver narrowly missing many oncoming vehicles before the deadly collision on Highway 99 north of Fulkerth Road.
He was killed, the people he hit incredibly survived – one person suffered major injuries, the other minor injuries.
Brianna Cortez is one of the drivers who narrowly escaped a crash before the deadly collision.
"It's very traumatizing," Cortez said. "All I know is a car was coming at me 100 miles per hour, and it looked like he wanted to crash head-on."
Cortez was driving with her three children in the back seat when she saw the headlights coming straight for her.
"It was like Mario Kart, like when you're in a video game and you're trying to dodge cars, like that," Cortez said.
The wrong-way driver killed in the crash is identified as 44-year-old Marvin Hernandez from Daly City. The California Highway Patrol believes he was driving drunk.
Officers made contact with Hernandez before the crash, asleep in the highway center median.
"They immediately noticed the driver slumped over the steering wheel, with the headlights on," CHP Sgt. Roberto Iniguez said.
Sgt. Iniguez said moments later Hernandez woke up, and hit the accelerator, going the wrong way.
"I knew that was going to end bad, if that person didn't hit me because I dodged him, that's crazy because that person was going to hurt somebody else," Cortez said.
A wrong-way driver's heart-pounding ride ended in a horrifying highway crash.
The two people who survived this crash were in the truck hit by the wrong-way driver.
One was slightly hurt, the other is recovering at Doctor's Medical Center in Modesto with major injuries but is expected to be OK.
